


Out of the Box Redux

by ladyeternal



Series: Bindings 'verse [10]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s01e14 Out of the Box, F/M, I'm Sorry, M/M, Tissue Warning, but when they are together it's heartbreaking, the boys don't spend much time together in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-08-24 15:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyeternal/pseuds/ladyeternal
Summary: Time is running out.  With the music box in his sights, Neal finally has to face the choice that he’s been avoiding for months:  life on the run and the love of a woman he can’t trust, or life in New York, and loving a man whose heart he’s sure can never belong to him.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: So. Much. Angst. This fic has more angst than most, as it is a redux of the angstiest ep in the season. Also canon character death and mild violence. Tissues should be on hand.
> 
> Spoilers: All aired episodes and the other fics in my [Bindings](http://archiveofourown.org/series/111824) ‘verse.
> 
> Disclaimer: The series White Collar, its characters and settings are the property of their respective creators. I own little more than a tabby that gets destructive when he feels ignored, and am only playing with the White Collar world for my own amusement and the free entertainment of others.
> 
> Author’s Note: Everybody please just remember that the heavy dose of angst in this fic isn’t _entirely_ my fault. Jeff Eastin started it, since he's the one that wrote the ep to begin with. ;_; Again, I’m warning everybody to have tissues on hand, especially when you get to the last couple chapters.
> 
> I cannot even begin to express how much I love all of my wonderful readers, or how grateful I am for the support of those that have reached out to encourage me to continue this ‘verse. Special mentions to [kanarek13](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanarek13) (who made [**_GORGEOUS_** book-cover style art for the series](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7685260)!) and [sherylyn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherylyn), who is a fabulous beta and provided me with invaluable validation when I desperately needed it. I couldn’t have done it without you, ladies!
> 
> If you love my fics, whether a first time reader or a fan from the start, please comment! I love feedback; the more detailed, the better. ♥ Series title card by [](http://dawnie-faith.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://dawnie-faith.livejournal.com/)**dawnie_faith**.
> 
> Music: [Wings of a Lie – Starship](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tm0Cc71Qn4)  
> [Where Do We Draw The Line – Poets of the Fall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnpCnqXvEM)  
> [Breathe Into Me – Red](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xte6Ig-H04s)  
> [Your Guardian Angel – Red Jumpsuit Apparatus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJbrc8nnQCo)  
> [Last Stand – Adelitas Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9HaRTRuLuI)  
> [Clarity - Zedd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZxo9mrWgR8)

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/00004ab7/)

****

~ooooOOOoooo~

Ten days.

Ten days of normalcy: working cases and enjoying the bemused respect of the White Collar Crime Unit. Bantering with Peter by day. Dinners at the Burkes’ townhouse. Evenings of quiet camaraderie with June.

Ten days since the last time he’d felt Peter’s skin against his own. Since he’d felt Peter buried to his core while whispering gentle endearments in his ear. Since those hands had touched him for more than just a reassuring grip to the shoulder or encouraging pat on the back.

It was like being in prison all over again, marking the wall to count off the number of days he’d been inside. The difference was that the marks of this tally felt carved into his heart, and he wasn’t sure there would ever be an end to them.

When Alex finally agreed to another meeting, it was harder than he’d thought to put on a charming face for Peter, the cover about June’s champagne brunch rolling off his tongue feeling almost too obvious. Peter hadn’t pressed him, had released him with a surprising lack of argument. If Neal hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Peter believed the alibi.

But he did know better. He knew Peter knew, or at least suspected, why he really wanted to leave the office before noon. He knew Peter would check his tracking data and see that he hadn’t gone to June’s home, but rather to the quiet hotel where Alex had arranged to meet him.

Ten days without the comforting intimacy he and Peter had shared already felt like a lifetime. Neal was ready for the limbo he was suspended in to finally be over, one way or another. Either he would free Kate and say farewell…

Or he would find out what a lifetime without Peter Burke really felt like.

* * *

“Got your message.” The words echoed hollowly around them as he walked to the edge of the private lap pool where Alex was swimming. The room was illuminated only by the glow of the lights within the pool itself, casting eerie shadows around her face as she stopped to tread water a few feet from the edge. “Was wondering when you were gonna call.”

“Hop in,” Alex invited blithely, her bright eyes never leaving his face. “We’ll chat.”

The cool September weather meant he’d dressed in multiple layers; at any other time, Neal would’ve been glad to strip out of them and dive in, relieving the clammy feeling that the humidity of the pool area was causing beneath them. But Alex was a temptation Neal found himself unwilling to indulge, even without Elizabeth’s edict of fidelity. She was as dangerous as she was beautiful, and the coming days would be complicated enough. “Forgot my suit,” Neal demurred carefully.

“Never stopped you before.” Alex’s voice was beguiling, almost eager, and Neal couldn’t help a small smile. But even as he was drawing breath for a rejoinder, Alex chuckled. “Relax: I know you’re wearing the anklet. What I _don’t_ know is if you’re wired.” When he hesitated a fraction of a second longer, she tilted her head in invitation. “Get in.”

It was a battle he didn’t care to fight, and Neal had learned the skill of putting off an ardent admirer hand-in-glove with the art of seduction. Knowing Alex was watching with more than just an interest in preserving the privacy of their meeting, Neal shrugged out of his overcoat, stripped down to skin, and dove into the pool.

Alex remained where she was as he cut cleanly through the water, then surfaced, turned and swam back to where she was treading. From a more level perspective, it was easy to see that she was as naked as he was, and Neal was careful to maintain a breath of distance from her bare curves as he came to a stop behind her. “Where’s the music box, Alex?”

Getting straight down to business obviously hadn’t been part of her plan; she stiffened at the question, then turned in the water to face him without leaving his personal space. “No small talk?” she asked archly.

“Come on,” he reproved softly. At this point, he had neither the time nor the inclination for the usual dance. He wanted the information she’d been withholding; wanted to get the retrieval of the box over with so that he could deal with Fowler before things had a chance to escalate again. “The note said it’s in Manhattan.”

“I want to make sure you don’t go and get it without me.”

Her brown eyes searched his face as she said it, clearly watching for tells that he would lie in response to her hesitation. Neal was glad he didn’t need to; even without knowing the location yet, whoever had the music box was likely to be keeping it locked away somewhere with tight security, which always meant at least two people would be needed to run the con that would get him in to steal it. And while Alex had never shared her reasons with him, he knew her investment in finding the box was personal, not just a thief’s professional determination.

“I told you,” he responded, trying to infuse as much reassurance into his tone as she would believe. “We get it together.”

Whatever she read in him in that moment, he would never know. But Neal had been reasonably sure from the beginning that Alex needed him to get at the box as much as he needed her. Everything else had been a game on her part: a way to keep him on the hook until she was ready to make her move. “It’s in the Italian consulate,” she finally told him. “I traced it to the Consul General: he tucked the box into his private safe in the consulate last year. He’s flying in next month to pick it up.”

Neal couldn’t help a small laugh: part frustration and part relief at finally having a solid lead to work from. _After all this time, of course it’s not going to be easy. But then, it wouldn’t be as much fun if it was…_ “Consulate’s a hard target,” he observed, careful to not show too much enthusiasm.

“They’re having a party next week,” Alex offered with a grin. “It’s our chance to get inside.”

“I’m always up for a party.” Her grin was infectious as Neal’s mind was already spinning out ideas: avenues to get access before the party itself so that they could scout both floor-plan and security set-up, options for what scheme to use and who needed to run what plays. “What happens when he notices it’s gone?”

The look Alex gave him was almost reproving. “The Nazis stole the box from the Russians…”

It wasn’t hard for him to finish the thought, once he stepped clear of the initial rush of excitement at having actionable information to work with. “He wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place, so he won’t talk when we steal it from him.”

Alex let out a pleased little hum, and Neal couldn’t help returning her gamine smile. It was as perfect a mark as he could have hoped for, all things considered. The thrill of the hunt was starting to thrum in his veins, addictive as nothing else could ever be.

By the way Alex’s eyes were dilated, he could tell she was feeling it, too. She was as much a creature of the game as he was: quicksilver and cunning. Neal had given in to the temptation of her once, and knew that she was offering to him another taste… knew that if he reached for her now, she would be wanton and warm, wild and oh, so willing.

But his heart was bound already, tied to a woman he loved and a man he needed like oxygen. There wasn’t room for a passionate assignation, no matter how fleeting or sweet.

“I’ve got a question,” he found himself saying, knowing where it would lead but needing to make sure there were no misunderstandings between them. “I know why I’m naked. Why are you?”

Alex’s eyebrows lifted, her smile widening coyly as she stretched out to swim around him. “Now there’s a question I never thought you’d need to ask, Caffrey. Last time I checked, you were pretty well versed in the reasons why I prefer to swim naked.”

Neal chuckled, watching her circle him lazily. In another time and place, he might have taken her up on the subtle offer and dealt with the fallout as it came. But in the here and now, the price was higher than he wanted to pay. “I suppose I was,” he replied, a trace of wistfulness in the words making her eyes widen before he got the rest out. “Too bad nothing’s that simple anymore.”

If there was a flash of hurt in her eyes at the rejection, it was gone so quickly that Neal almost couldn’t discern it from a trick of the lights. But her expression was pure nonchalance as she shrugged and swam away from him. “Yeah… too bad.” When she reached the opposite end from where he’d entered, she hoisted herself out of the water and onto the pool deck. Unabashed in her nudity, she walked to the chair where she’d left a fluffy robe and a pair of soft-soled neoprene shoes and slipped them on. “Enjoy the water, Caffrey. We can discuss details another time.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. He’d known she wouldn’t. With a soft, not quite regretful sigh, Neal swam to the ladder and climbed from the water. Drying himself with the towel she’d left him, he sent Mozzie a quick text before dressing and heading for June’s.

* * *

“A consulate?!” Mozzie sat at the end of Neal’s dining table, his reaction when Neal told him the target predictably both negative and expansive. “Oh, great. An _international_ incident. Look, I don’t want to spend my days in some… underground prison! Adopting cockroaches as pets!”

Neal rolled his eyes, wishing not for the first time that Mozzie was just a tiny bit less excitable. He needed the elder conman’s critical eye, knew that Mozzie would see pitfalls that he might miss given his personal stake in the heist. But Neal had come to rely on Peter’s grounding calm, and he wasn’t going to have access to it this time. With how high the stakes were, he couldn’t afford to give in to his own anxieties and still pull this off, and Mozzie’s frenetic reactions didn’t help matters. “We’re not talking about North Korea. It’s the _Italians_ , Moz.”

Mozzie snorted. “They do prison just fine; ask Galileo.” A hard frown from Neal put an end to that particular line of absurdity, and Mozzie abruptly changed subjects. “Can we do it without Alex?”

“No,” Neal groused. “She won’t tell me which safe it’s in.”

“She was always a smart girl,” Mozzie lamented with a sigh. At Neal’s answering groan, he moved on to the next flaw in the insanity Neal was proposing. “All of this is moot, anyway: the suit isn’t going to let you out of your anklet anytime soon.”

It was a fair point. Peter hadn’t wanted Neal to even do field work with the team in the past week, much less take on any avenues of investigation that would require him to be off-anklet. The criminal in Neal had chafed at the restriction, at the idea that Peter was keeping him on a shorter leash than normal in an effort to prevent him from going after the box.

The part of Neal that had seen Peter’s passion, that felt safer in those strong arms than anywhere else in the world… that part of him knew that the Wilkes incident was too recent for Peter to be comfortable sending Neal into a similar situation, even for the good of a case and with all of the appropriate precautions taken. It tugged at a heart already threatening to splinter that Peter took such care with him, no matter what other motives his mind wanted to protest were also commingled with that steadfast concern.

But Mozzie didn’t need to know any of that, and Neal had already thought past all of it anyway. He turned away from the windows that looked out over the skyline to give Mozzie a sly smile. “Not Peter.”

Mozzie blinked. “Then who?”

Neal’s smile widened and he walked back over to the table, closer to the end where Mozzie sat. “ _Fowler_. If he wants me to get at the music box, he has to cut my anklet.” He saw the disbelieving stare on his best friend’s face and tried to counter the protest before it got made. “He’s manipulated it before.”

This was getting out of hand. Moz had been in the business a long time, had lived and worked more hustles than Neal could imagine. He’d made enemies that he’d outmaneuvered and friends that he’d outlived; he’d known passion and loss and learned to protect himself as best anyone in the life could do.

Neal was a genius. A prodigy. He’d never seen talent like Neal’s on any level: the charisma or the artistry, the memory or the instinct. Men like Neal came along once in a generation; once in an age; and Mozzie had done his best to teach the younger man everything he’d learned in his own illicit career.

But Neal had never learned to watch his own flank when it came to his heart. And it was going to get him killed someday.

“Okay.” Mozzie stood up and took a breath. Neal clearly had the bit in his teeth over this, and Mozzie knew why. It was time to address it head on. “Let’s say he goes for it. Let’s say you get him the box.” He looked Neal squarely in the eyes. “Then what?”

The question made Neal blink in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You give Fowler the music box, and Kate comes running into your arms…”

Something inside Neal went soft and warm as the image Moz described painted itself in his mind. As surely as he could ever feel the traces of Peter’s passion under his skin, he could suddenly feel Kate’s slender arms slipping around his chest, her head coming to rest on his shoulder in relief. He could hear the echo of the way she would breathe his name, and feel the shadow of her lips brush his own as they were finally reunited...

“...you settle down,” Mozzie continued, knowing that Neal was imagining everything he described. “Buy a fixer-upper and then… join the P.T.A.?”

_It would be a home… maybe not something so small or pedantic like he’s saying; Kate and I always dreamed bigger than that. But we could make a home together… a place where we could be happy… a place where nothing could ever touch us and we would never have to run or hide or keep secrets… a place where our kids could grow up without ever needing to be told that everything they’ve ever known is…_

_*...I don’t know what decision you’re going to make.*_

Elizabeth’s voice intruded on the reverie, pulling Neal into the present. Mozzie was standing in front of him, waiting for an answer. _How can I tell him that I don’t know anymore if Kate’s the one I want to share that life he’s describing? How can I ever explain to him that I have to choose between a woman I can’t trust and a man who may never love me back?_

He couldn’t. He knew Mozzie would never understand, would never accept it if Neal made the choice to stay with Peter even after risking everything to free Kate from Fowler’s manipulative control. He would lose Mozzie if he took that road, no matter how much the little man cared about him or liked Peter’s wife. And he had no idea if taking that path would gain him anything but a heart broken in slow degrees for want of a man that was already married to someone that actually deserved him.

So a soft ‘yeah’ slipped out, the future he’d dreamed of sharing with Kate slotting into place in his mind, and Neal tried not to feel like he’d somehow betrayed the memory of everything that had ever happened in this room as it did.

Having no idea the turmoil he’d caused inside his protege, Mozzie tried one last time to convince Neal to pull back. “Neal… happily-ever-after isn’t for guys like us.”

“It is this time,” Neal assured him fervently. He had no idea which of them he was trying harder to convince. “It is.”

* * *

Arranging the meeting with Fowler was easy enough to accomplish. Neal could sense the desperation hiding behind the agent’s brutal cunning, and he had no qualms about using that to his advantage, even if he couldn’t fathom the reason for it. Not digging in to find out what was behind it was a gamble, but Neal wasn’t about to risk putting anyone else in Fowler’s crosshairs for the sake of finding out.

Using his tracking anklet to signal the location for the meet was a double-edged sword; he knew better than anyone else how closely Peter monitored the feeds while they were apart. He told himself it was worth the risk, that it was the only way to communicate covertly with Fowler and still retain any control over the situation. He didn’t trust the man, or the agents working under him, and Neal wasn’t going to let Fowler have anything that could be used against him later if he could help it.

Part of him hoped Peter _would_ notice the pattern. Would see that he was mapping escape routes in case Fowler double-crossed him somehow. Would know, just as Peter always knew, and would be there to rescue Neal in case things went south.

It would complicate matters; Neal knew that Peter would put the whole picture together very quickly if he did follow Neal to the meet, and then he would have Peter’s good intentions and sense of justice to contend with on top of all the other variables in the mix. But Neal could and would deal with Peter if necessary. It would be worth it, to know that even in this, Peter would be there to catch him if he fell.

And sure enough, when Neal turned to leave after Fowler and his sidekick had already gone, Neal caught sight of the Taurus parked just beyond the wall that he’d been standing near.

How long Peter had been there, Neal couldn’t begin to guess; he hadn’t heard a car drive in for over an hour before Fowler had shown up, and the fact that Peter didn’t make his presence known as Neal left meant that Peter wanted it that way. But tears still pricked at his eyes as he walked swiftly back to Riverside Drive: gratitude that no matter what else was happening between them, no matter what choices Neal made, Peter still cared enough to try and keep him safe.

It was more than Kate had done in all the time since Neal had left prison for good. And much as Neal wanted to reason that away, wanted there to be a perfectly logical explanation for it, the fact that Kate didn’t seem to be fighting nearly as hard to be with him as he was to get to her nagged at him.

Kate was still his responsibility; she wouldn’t be involved at all in this mess if it weren’t for him. Beyond that… Neal would have to wait and see.

* * *

Mozzie had gotten the blueprints to the Italian consulate from one of his contacts; Neal hadn’t asked who and didn’t much care, either. He’d been researching the family of the Consul General, looking for a connection that would give him his in, and didn’t have time to wonder how Mozzie always managed to get the intel they needed. Mozzie’s life was filled with its own secrets, after all; everyone in the life had things they kept to themselves, for one reason or another. Neal had enough of his own to fill the walk-in closet in his suite.

Once upon a time, he’d told Peter that maybe one day he’d share those secrets. Before things had come to a head with the music box. Before he’d realized that the choice Elizabeth had predicted he’d need to make was no longer something he could avoid thinking about.

And so he focused on the problem: the security measures at the consulate. How to get in, get to the safe, get the hardware he’d need into place so that he could access it without interruption in the timeline. The execution of this retrieval would be tight, even if nothing went wrong. If anything went wrong, not even Peter could save him.

He tried very hard not to think about that.

As if the planning of this escapade wasn’t complicated enough, with Alex continuing to keep details to herself as though Mozzie and Neal could pull this off without her, they were interrupted by a knock on the door of his suite while they were going over the blueprints Mozzie had brought over. June stepped in without waiting for a response. A prearranged signal that meant ‘cover your tracks’. “Neal? Uh… _company_ is on the way.”

“Thank you,” Neal offered sincerely, even as Mozzie was placing a painting on the easel over the blueprints and Alex was slipping the consulate’s guest list into her bag and shouldering it. June had been an unlooked-for ally from the beginning of this unlikely time in his life, and Neal was lucky to have her on his side.

Peter came striding in a few seconds later, just as everything looked above-board. “Oh, look at this! All the usual suspects in one place.” His tone was nearly crowing, sarcastic enough to snap. Neal hated that tone in Peter’s voice; it usually meant that he was livid over something and didn’t want to show it. “Makes my job much easier. What are you kids up to?”

“We were just leaving,” Alex replied, an innocent smile pasted on as she slipped past Peter and left without so much as a backwards glance.

“I bet you are,” Peter muttered darkly, noting the way Mozzie vacated the room right behind her. Neal’s face was a mask as he watched them go, Mozzie closing the door behind himself, and Peter couldn’t hold his tongue a second longer, rounding on his lover. “I know you met with Fowler.”

It wasn’t how he’d wanted to open the conversation, to simply announce what he knew and challenge Neal as if spoiling for a fight. Neal himself blinked at the ferocity Peter was displaying, clearly taken aback. But Peter had seen red when he’d realized June was trying to beat him upstairs on purpose: a inescapable cue that time wasn’t on his side. “And now Alex and your little buddy are here. You’ve got your whole crew to steal the box!” He watched Neal turn reflexively towards the door and then back again, mouth open as if to interrupt Peter’s accusations, or deflect them. “Tell me I’m wrong!”

There would be no evasion this time. Neal could see it on Peter’s face. Shrugging, letting a tiny smile tug at his lips that had no hope of reaching his eyes, Neal gave Peter the answer he’d asked for but knew better than to believe. “You’re wrong?”

The almost kittenish innocence of the response was all the confirmation Peter needed. Peter wanted to rage at Neal, to pull him in and shake him, to kiss him until they were both senseless to anything but each other and Neal would agree to anything he asked. But he’d given Neal his head, wanting Neal to make his choice freely. All he could hope to do was convince Neal that Kate was the wrong choice. “I don’t understand you,” he snapped, hurt twisting into the words as they came out of his mouth. “I gave you a shot at a better life.”

For a long moment, Neal didn’t know how to answer that. The life that Peter had offered him was dizzyingly tempting: work that challenged his mind and his skills, a chance to prove to the more violent among his ilk that he was better than they were. A home here with June, who understood him far better than he could’ve hoped for, sometimes even better than Peter did himself. Respect, friendship, even trust. They were all here at the edge of his fingertips, waiting for him to reach out and take them.

But the one thing Peter had never offered as a part of that life was love. Sex, yes. Companionship, without question. Love belonged to the woman that shared Peter’s bed in Brooklyn, and Peter didn’t know everything about him. Had yet to earn the full truth of Neal’s past, and with that, the reason why Neal couldn’t turn his back on Kate if she was offering the one thing that Peter never had.

The part of him that loved this man with a fierceness that frightened him wanted to tell Peter the truth. To tell him that if Kate didn’t love him that Neal would stay, because he loved Peter too much to turn his back on everything Peter could give him if Kate didn’t return his feelings.

Peter understood about responsibility. He would understand, if Neal explained it properly, that Neal couldn’t just leave Kate twisting in Fowler’s manipulative grip regardless of what came after. That as long as Fowler was waiting in the shadows for Neal, he was a threat to Peter, and Neal couldn’t countenance that. But that meant telling Peter that he loved him.

Neal was strong enough to survive it if Kate didn’t love him back. But he knew he wouldn’t survive if Peter confirmed that he didn’t love Neal the way Neal loved him.

“It’s not the life I want,” he finally said, hating the way Peter seemed to absorb the words like a blow. The instant they were out, he wanted to take them back, to explain what he meant. To erase the way Peter seemed to withdraw from him, a silent rescission that made Neal want to fling himself across the space between them and lose himself in Peter’s arms just one last time.

Neal couldn’t let himself have what he wanted. Not yet. And he was no child, to believe that even something you cherished above all else would be right where you left it if you set it down and walked away.

More often than not, by the time you came back, it no longer even wanted to be found.


	2. Part Two

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/00004ab7/)

****

~ooooOOOoooo~

There was a lump in Peter’s throat that almost choked off his air. It took a long moment to work past it, to blink back the burn of tears. He wouldn’t allow Neal to see what it did to him to know that Neal had finally chosen, and that his choice hadn’t been Peter.

The rejection stung, even having tried to prepare for it from almost the beginning of this improbable affair. Peter had been as much Neal’s as El’s since their first kiss in this very room; that Neal found everything Peter had to offer wanting cut Peter deeper than he’d ever expected.

“Okay,” he said finally, forcing the words out. Neal wasn’t looking at him anymore; it made Peter wonder if this was as hard for his lover as it was for him. “Well, we all have our weakness. Kate’s yours.”

Neal’s head shot up at that, a denial springing to his lips. _No, she’s not, Peter. You are. You’ve been my weakness from the beginning. Mozzie knows it. Keller saw it in an instant. Fowler’s already used it against us twice and he won’t hesitate to do it again. How can you be the only one that doesn’t see it?_

Whatever retort Neal might have offered, though, died in his throat at Peter’s crestfallen expression. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t make this harder on both of them, and Neal couldn’t abandon Kate, no matter what he felt for Peter. He couldn’t just ignore the threat Fowler presented to Peter, either; even if Kate had betrayed him utterly, Fowler still needed taken off the board for Peter’s sake.

Peter saw the way Neal’s face shifted, too many emotions chasing through those blue eyes to read properly. Maybe the best thing to do was back off, at least for the moment. Cornering Neal had never been a viable way of getting anywhere with him. “Do the right thing, Neal,” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound as defeated as he felt as he walked past Neal towards the door of the suite.

His hand touched the knob; all at once, remembrance of their second tryst shot through Peter. They’d both reached for this same fixture at the same time and wound up pouncing on one another like sex-starved teenagers. The memory twisted through him, laced with bitter gall, and it brought Peter up short. Could he really just surrender Neal to Kate? Could he really let this be the end, and never be able to remember Neal with the fondness of passion recalled? Only with hurt souring everything they’d shared?

No. Not now, when it mattered the most. Peter loved Neal too much to give him up without a fight. He glanced back at Neal, watched Neal turn instinctively to meet his gaze. "You're fooling yourself if you think Kate's on your side," he offered, watching Neal’s reaction.

For a moment… just a moment… the heartbroken expression in Neal’s eyes made Peter absolutely certain that Neal knew it. That Neal didn’t trust Kate any more than Peter did, and that whatever happened once Neal had gotten his hands on the music box, things would never be the same between she and Neal again.

_But if Neal knows he can’t trust her, and he’s still going after the box…_

Not trusting himself to not say something he’d regret, Peter opened the door and left without another word.

* * *

Neal looked away as he left; couldn't watch Peter walking away after the intensity of their exchange. He had to do this: had to free Kate from Fowler's thrall, no matter where her loyalties lay. Had to remove the threat to Peter before something irreversible happened.

Gripping the easel hard enough to turn his knuckles white, he stared at the painting covering the consulate’s blueprints in something near anguish, eyes unseeing and heart in turmoil.

_*Peter's hands ran smoothly up his sides as he tried to concentrate on the food in the pan before him. Those surprisingly deft fingers bunching the silk of his shirt, tugging it free of his pants and ducking beneath, trailing along his skin and leaving electric tingles in their wake._

_"I'm trying to make dinner here, Peter," he protested, breath catching as Peter's lips drifted over the back of his neck._

_"And if I was hungry for food, that might be incentive to stop." Peter's voice, deep velvet in his ear, vibrant and husky with unveiled passion._

_"Some of us need to eat if we're expected to have any stamina," Neal chided._

_"You're ten years younger than me," Peter returned easily. "You don't get to plead lack of stamina."_

_Pushing them both back away from the stove, Neal turned in Peter's arms, wrapped his own around Peter's neck and indulged a few lazy kisses to those infinitely gentle lips. "How about exhaustion, then? My boss works me to the bone and my lover puts college boys to shame."_

_Humming indulgently, Peter kissed him back. "I suppose I could go easy on you tonight, under the circumstances."*_

He'd wanted to say 'I love you' in that moment. Wanted to say it a hundred times over these last few months. He hadn't. He'd shooed Peter away with the spoon in his hand and gone back to making dinner.

It was better this way. At least for now. When he saw Kate again… with no barriers or threats between them… then he'd know for sure.

Then he could be certain it was only his own heart he'd be breaking when he chose.

* * *

Sleep eluded Neal for days after the confrontation. His mind refused to settle no matter what method he tried to clear it, his imagination working through every scenario that he didn’t want to think about in the busy light of day. But even worse were the dreams when he did sleep, plaguing him until he woke feeling more tired than when he’d first closed his eyes. Each more terrible than the last, and driving him to wakefulness with shallow breath and bitten-back cries of Peter or Kate’s names.

_*Alex’s information being wrong, and the music box not being there when they finally got through consular security to retrieve it._

_The plan failing; being caught in the act, and Peter abandoning Neal to his fate in an Italian prison._

_Kate’s last visit to the prison, and her unfeeling rejection: the heartbreak that had sparked his escape._

_Fowler framing Peter and sending him to prison to die: vengeance served ice cold as soon as Neal’s back was turned and Peter was unprotected._

_Memories of making love to Peter, phantom catches of the scent of Peter’s skin or the illusion of warmth left behind on Peter’s side of his now too-empty bed._

_Kate spurning him. Peter no longer wanting him. Neither of them loving him, no matter how much Neal loved them or how hard he tried… just like…*_

The only way to banish the ghosts was to keep busy. So when he couldn’t sleep, he planned. It kept his mind occupied, and drove the shadows back for a few hours. The growing trend of using one’s real name instead of a cipher for social media accounts made the research he needed to do into the Consul General almost too easy. That the man’s favorite artist turned out to be a sculptor was a piece of good luck that Neal hoped was an omen, especially since the sculptor in question was one of the Fancellis.

Alex had been spending the week courting the affections of Ignatius Barton, who claimed rights to the title of the defunct duchy of Mantua. It was two nights before the consulate’s gala that she sent Neal a text, letting him know that she’d be stopping by the suite after their dinner date that evening. Neal was putting the finishing touches on his sculpture when she arrived, swanning through his door with a glowing smile on her face. “Your date went well?” he asked, barely looking up from scanning the surface of the clay for imperfections.

“You’d be _amazed_ : the kinds of places a duke gets you access to.” She was beaming like a woman in love as she closed the door and leaned against it, her dark eyes shining and her body relaxed as though drunk on endorphins and wine.

Neal knew better than to fall for that particular pose. Her marks always did… but then again, so had his, when he’d needed to play that particular card. “I thought you were just using him for a plus-one?”

“No harm in having a little fun while I’m at it.” Her tone was playful as she hung up her coat, still high from the fatuous attention the duke had been paying her. It was all a game, but being able to play a mark so skillfully was always a nice boost to a girl’s self-esteem.

Neal said nothing, turning his attention back to the clay in front of him. Alex focused on it, despite the much more appealing bare-chested man that was searching its surface for flaws. No matter how harsh the prison he’d been in had been, Neal had escaped with remarkably little external evidence of his time there. His body was still sleek and firm, pale skin dusted with the occasional freckle but otherwise unmarred.

It was easy to want Neal Caffrey. It was far more difficult to try and hold onto him. She wondered how Kate Moreau had managed to ensnare his heart so completely.

“Wow,” she offered instead, not wanting Neal to turn back and catch her ogling him. “Your gift to the Italians?”

“It’s Fancelli’s study,” Neal confirmed as he cleaned a curl of scraped clay away from the surface. “Statua di Vulcano.”

Alex paced around to study the reference images he’d been working from. Neal obviously wasn’t going to try and pass his creation off to the consulate officials as the real thing: making clay look and feel like marble would be impossible, and the actual sculpture still graced the gardens of famous Palazzo Pitti in Florence. But it was clear that he was creating what could pass as a model that Fancelli would have used while working the marble, or maybe the mock-up that would have been shown to a potential patron before the actual statue was carved. Either way, it would be perfect by the time Neal was done with it. Everything Neal put his hands to came out flawlessly… at least when it came to his art.

“This is beautiful,” she murmured, turning back around to examine Neal’s work more closely. “Looks like the real thing.”

Neal gave her a sly grin. Shaping the clay around the safe-cracking tools he would need had been arduous work, especially given their weight. It made any form of firing nearly impossible, which placed even more limits on the story he could use to sell it to the consulate staff. But the impossibility of the challenge sang in his veins, and focusing on that made it easier to ignore the way his heart lay like lead in his chest. “Don’t let it fool you,” he warned impishly.

“I won’t,” Alex assured him. It felt like a more significant exchange than she’d intended, drawing his gaze back to hers. Those blue eyes were almost violet in the dim light, wide and intense and far too easy to get lost in. Pulling herself back before she could, Alex quickly changed the subject from what had been on the tip of her tongue. “There’s something we’ve been avoiding; I think it’s time to talk about it.”

Between their narrow timetable and intensive preparations, Neal had been hoping the subject wouldn’t come up. But Alex appeared to want to clear the air, and Neal knew putting her off again like he had in the hotel pool would be impossible. “All right,” he agreed, putting down the shaping tool he’d been using and turning to face her more fully. “Look: I know you and I have a complicated relationship-”

“I meant this,” Alex interrupted. She tapped at the anklet on his left leg with her foot, the faint click of shoe leather against molded plastic interrupting what was about to be an intensely awkward conversation. Neal glanced down, flushing faintly in embarrassment at having misread the direction she’d wanted to take the conversation. Alex was glad of it; keeping Neal off-balance was the only way to be sure she wasn’t about to get played by him. “If you can’t get it off, then none of this will matter, and everything we’re doing-”

“It’ll happen, all right?” Neal assured her. He couldn’t begin to think how to tell her the entire story. Alex was skittish enough about his ties to Peter. If she knew too much about Fowler, it was possible that she’d simply abandon the plan entirely, and Neal couldn’t risk that without the information she’d been withholding. “Can I get you a glass of wine?”

He was smiling at her: that boyish, charming, aw-shucks-ma’am smile that was so completely disarming no matter how prepared she tried to be against it. “Okay,” she heard herself agreeing, wishing that knowing Neal as well as she did meant that she was impervious to the blandishments he wielded so unconsciously.

She wandered over to the couch while he covered the statue and opened a bottle, watched him slip on a pair of shoes and join her with the bottle and two glasses. Once poured, Neal held his glass up, smiling his impossible smile. “To luck being on our side,” he toasted roguishly. “Because no matter how well you plan, that’s what every con comes down to.”

“I’ll drink to that,” she agreed, clinking her glass with his. He put his feet up as they relaxed, and Alex couldn’t help studying the careless profile he presented. It was easy to believe that he had nothing dark or hidden beneath the surface, that he was as free and feckless as he appeared, for all the F.B.I. had tried to fetter him with the anklet. But no one in the life was without secrets, and that beautifully polished exterior hid more of them than he would ever share. “You remember the last time we were this close to getting the box?” she asked.

Neal nodded, glancing at her. “Copenhagen,” he recalled easily. “Sneaking into the Amalienborg Palace… hanging out with the royal family.” He laughed a little, heard her echo the sound, remembering those times all too fondly. _Simpler times,_ he thought. _Life moved like a dream back then… it was so easy to believe that life could’ve been like that forever. It felt like this life with Peter would last forever, too… why do things have to change so fast?_

The shadows that crossed his face seemed to stretch to enclose Alex, raising gooseflesh on her arms. It reminded her of the end of that little adventure, and the fingers of her left hand reached over to stroke an old memory on her right forearm. “I have a scar… from the jump off the gatehouse.”

“Healed nicely,” Neal offered, uncomfortably aware of how their last attempt had fallen apart at a crucial moment. Their escape had been hasty, using a last resort exit plan that had left Alex seriously injured and Neal on the run. That part of the memory was far less pleasant; a reminder of how all dreams faded in the harsh light of reality.

“You didn’t visit me in the hospital,” Alex accused, some of the hurt she hadn’t been aware of still carrying over that point bleeding into her voice.

“You didn’t visit me in prison,” Neal countered. Not that he’d expected her to. Not that he’d even really wanted her to or thought about her while he’d been there. But Alex had known how close his escape from the authorities had been in that moment; had known they were waiting for him to try and see her during her recovery. The idea that she was holding that against him stung, especially given the lack of any real intimacy between them.

Alex was many things, but she wasn’t Kate. And she certainly wasn’t Peter.

“You burned that bridge in Copenhagen!” Alex felt herself getting defensive, didn’t want the peace of this moment ruined with an old argument. When Neal tried to retort that she’d cut him out, Alex decided to concede the point. “We cut each other out,” she insisted, pitching her voice low and reasonable. “That’s…”

“Who we are,” Neal finished, fighting down his own upset. He looked back at her, hoping she would understand, believe him without needing every detail explained. “It’s not a game this time,” he assured her, realizing for the first time that their prior attempt had been, at least for him. It never had been for her, which was likely why she’d felt so betrayed. Why she was being so careful to keep him at arm’s length now.

“Come on: I know you’re going to take the box.” She said it without rancor, proof that his conclusions were correct. She no longer believed him capable of not cutting her out, especially not when it was now personal to him, too. “I know this is about Kate.”

He looked away from her again, trying to keep her from seeing how deeply the truths he was uncovering just now affected him. It would never have worked between them even if Kate had never been in the picture, because Neal knew he couldn’t trust Alex. He knew that there would never be a time where she would put their relationship over her own self-interest.

But Neal didn’t trust Kate, either. He knew that now better than he ever had before prison. The only person he trusted was Peter. But Kate might love him, whereas Peter…

His unseeing eyes focused as the light that they’d been gazing at winked out. It gave him pause, pulled him out of the logic trap that had plagued him for days before it could get a head of steam. “Alex,” he said softly, their argument abandoned. “Look.”

“Don’t lie to me, Neal.” Alex hadn’t realized that he’d changed the subject, caught up in her own reactions now that the conversation had opened up the past. “It’s humiliating for both of us.”

“No! No, look.” Neal reached down, touching the reset button on the anklet and pressing it firmly. There was no effect. The indicator which normally meant that the GPS signal was transmitting properly remained dark. “This light’s never been off before.”

Focusing on his anklet, Alex let the past drift back into the past. “Fowler came through?” she asked, seeking confirmation of what he seemed to be saying.

Neal looked up at her, his eyes bright and keen as sapphires. “I think we’re in play.”

Alex grinned at him. “I’d ask how you always manage to pull these things off, Caffrey, but I’m not sure the answer would make me feel any better.” Sighing, she finished her wine and stood up. “I should go; drinking and reminiscing after eleven never comes out to anything good, and if you’re really off their radar, we need to be ready.”

Nodding once, Neal stood up as she stepped past him. He escorted her downstairs, pausing for a moment with her in the foyer. “Look, Alex…” He stopped for a moment, wanting to salt and burn the ghosts they’d made restless tonight.

Before he could continue, Alex shook her head. “Don’t, Neal. It’s not important right now. Let’s just get this done. Afterwards… we’ll see.”

With a soft sigh, Neal accepted that she was right. Retrieving the music box was the paradigm shift. Offering her a small smile, Neal nodded. “See you at the party.”

Alex smiled back, knowing that, in two days’ time, nothing would ever be the same between them again. “Good night, Neal.” And then she turned and left, hearing him latch the door behind her as she went to hail a cab.


	3. Part Three

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/00004ab7/)

****

~ooooOOOoooo~

Neal was officially off the clock as far as the F.B.I. was concerned. He’d requested a couple of personal days, and given recent events, Hughes hadn’t been disposed to deny him.

The timing of the request had coincided with Neal’s meeting with Fowler, which was all the evidence Peter had needed to be certain that the days Neal had requested were when the caper to steal the music box was going down. But much as he wished he could put a stop to it, Peter couldn’t bring himself to tell Hughes what was happening. Hughes would’ve had no qualms about sending Neal back to prison for even considering taking part in a heist, no matter what the circumstances were. And Peter didn’t know enough about the caper to try and interfere directly.

Part of him seriously regretted telling Neal that he didn’t want to know any more than he had to about what lengths Neal was going to get the box. But then again, he hadn’t counted on Neal being so willing to completely cut him out of the loop. He hadn’t counted on Neal being willing to risk everything for a woman he didn’t trust.

If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t counted on falling so deeply in love with Neal and yet being utterly unable to win Neal’s heart away from Kate at the same time.

Though he didn’t know it, Peter was doing the same as Neal: trying to not think about the larger ramifications of what was coming by keeping busy. He and Jones had been out of the office working a case all morning when Peter’s stomach rather loudly announced that it had been neglected between all the worrying and all the work. Jones laughed and Peter smiled ruefully. “I guess it’s about time for lunch, then. Care to join me?”

“Sure.” As they exited the office building and headed for where Peter’s car was parked, Jones glanced around as if gauging whether or not they were being followed. “Listen, Peter, I don’t know what you and Caffrey have going on right now, but if you’re talking on the phone, you might want to make sure you’re on a secure line unless you want someone else to know about it.”

Peter glanced at Jones. “What do you mean?”

Jones shrugged. “Well, nothing’s going on in my life that’s worth listening in on, so they’re probably hoping that one of you will say something to me about it. Not that you would unless you needed to, but they don’t know that.”

“You think your phone’s being tapped?” Peter asked sharply. While Peter trusted Jones more than any of his other current subordinates, and Jones rightly knew that Peter wouldn’t read him in on anything that would compromise him unless absolutely necessary, it was a bad sign nonetheless. And Peter knew that Fowler wouldn’t scruple to ruin Jones’ career if he felt it necessary to get what he wanted.

“Been on the other side enough to recognize those clicks,” Jones confirmed. The part of him that was an investigator badly wanted to know why Peter and Neal’s activities had drawn such attention from an outsider. Their dynamic made them a topic of fascination and curiosity around the F.B.I., to be sure, but Jones knew there was more to this than someone trying to puzzle out their connection.

But the part of him that was loyal to Peter knew that the senior agent would only read him in if he needed to know so as to minimize Jones’ exposure. He wasn’t going to press for more details until Peter was ready to give them.

“That’s not good.” Peter had worked with Jones long enough to know that Jones wasn’t mistaking static for a tap on the line. And if Jones was being listened to, it was a fair bet that others on the team were as well. “Lauren?” he asked, wondering if Jones had talked to anyone else about it.

“Same,” Jones confirmed as they got into the car. “Now Fowler’s back. Think there’s a connection?”

Peter started the car, but before he could answer, his phone connected to the car’s Bluetooth and a call from Elizabeth rang in. He quickly hit the answer button on the dash’s touchscreen. “Hey, El; what’s up?”

_“Honey, I-I need you.”_

More than her tone, the tiny hitch in her voice told Peter that El was in distress. “What’s the matter?” he asked immediately.

_“They-they’re tearing apart my office.”_

“Who?!” Peter demanded, looking sharply at Jones and then back at the display, as if he could see his wife’s face through the screen.

 _“The F.B.I.”_ Her voice grew muffled, as if she’d lowered the phone from her mouth for a moment. _“Please! Please don’t touch that!”_

“El, did-?” She didn’t respond, the call dropping. Peter hoped she’d merely hung up in a moment of agitation and looked at Jones again. “Did she say ‘F.B.I.’?”

“Yeah.” Jones’ expression was grim as Peter cued up the traffic feature on the car’s interface. First he and Lauren, and now Peter’s wife was being drawn in. _If this is Fowler, he’s not pulling any punches right now. Whatever’s going on, I sure hope the boss knows what he’s doing… or better yet, what Caffrey’s doing. Because I get a bad feeling that this is about to get messy. Fast._

* * *

By the time they got to Elizabeth’s showroom, Peter was so agitated that he was barely speaking. They strode into the office to find a contingent of agents rifling through everything that wasn’t nailed down, except for one who was standing in front of the door, blatantly positioned to keep someone from leaving without the lead agent’s consent. Elizabeth’s petite frame sagged in relief when she saw them. “Honey.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Peter went to her in an instant, half-turned to look at the agent blocking her path. He didn’t recognize the man at all, which meant that he wasn’t currently posted to the Manhattan office. “Hey, who’s in charge here?”

“Stay away from my suspect, Burke!”

Without needing to see the face that went with it, the voice calling out that order instantly raised Peter’s hackles. He looked up to see Fowler and the man’s right-hand agent standing in the middle of Elizabeth’s showroom, a smug expression on Fowler’s face that Peter instantly wanted to put his fist through. “Your suspect?” he snapped, closing the distance between them. “You are way out of bounds here, Fowler.”

“Fowler?” The name caught Elizabeth’s attention, a memory clicking into place. She’d heard that name once too often in recent months to not recognize it, and protective outrage sent her charging past Peter before she could think better of it. “Wait… you’re the man who violated out home?!” Dimly, she heard Peter trying to reason with her, felt his hand touch her in an attempt to pull her back. It wasn’t enough to penetrate the fog of anger that had rolled around her now that she had a face to put to the name. “You almost ruined my husband’s career!”

“You better calm your wife down here, Burke,” Fowler drawled, lazy superiority lacing his tone.

That, combined with the fact that he didn’t have the decency to look remotely fazed by her accusations, only incensed Elizabeth further. This man had framed Neal for theft and her husband for bribery, and now her business and reputation were the latest victims of his machinations. “I will not calm down!” she shouted even as Peter tried to talk over her, her hand stretching out to touch Fowler’s chest in an effort to draw his attention.

Fowler pointed to her hand and looked at Peter, his expression almost amused. “That is assaulting an agent,” he sneered at them, finally looking down at her. “You’re under arrest.”

“Are you kidding me?” she shouted, even as Fowler moved to turn her around to be handcuffed. “This is absolutely ridiculous!”

Without warning, Elizabeth found herself stumbling as she was shoved to the side. The sound of a fist connecting with a face hit her ears an instant before she regained her balance and was able to turn back to the scene: Fowler, wiping blood from his lips as he was standing back up; Peter shaking off both Jones and one of Fowler’s agents, having landed a punch squarely across Fowler’s jaw in a moment of unchecked fury.

Horror settled over Elizabeth as the full weight of what had just happened sank in. They’d just been played, and skillfully so. She knew it even before she watched the triumphant expression wind its way across Fowler’s bloodied mouth, barely feeling the handcuffs that one of his agents snapped around her wrists as Fowler took the action that he’d been baiting Peter into giving him a reason to take from the very beginning.

“You just got yourself a suspension, Agent Burke,” Fowler informed him, his words far more casual than the malicious glint in his eyes as he turned his attention to Jones. “Jones, right? Take his gun and badge.”

“You got your own guys for that,” Jones snarled, furious on behalf of the Burkes and incensed that Fowler was so blatantly trying to gain an excuse to take him off the chessboard so that Peter couldn’t work through him during his suspension. “ _Sir_.”

The _‘go fuck yourself’_ so thoroughly infused in Jones’ tone wiped the haughty look off Fowler’s face in a heartbeat, a snarl of rage replacing it. “Take his gun and badge,” he repeated, emphasizing each word as if Jones were a particularly stupid pet rock.

“It’s all right, Jones.” Peter was already retrieving his service revolver from its holster and his badge from the inner pocket of his coat. He’d lost this battle, and Elizabeth was a casualty he hadn’t seen coming. He’d be damned if Jones was going to become one as well. Jones took them from Peter without hesitation, and Peter looked back at Fowler with no submission in his eyes. “It was worth it.”

Fowler grinned at him over his lieutenant’s shoulder, blood staining the teeth in his smile. “Well, now that’s settled,” he gestured at the agent holding Elizabeth’s arms. “Take her away.”

“You can’t be serious!” Peter snarled. “She barely touched you!”

“She was clearly acting out of aggression,” Fowler replied calmly. “And there’s still the matter of the prohibited foodstuffs to be investigated. So as of right now, she’s under arrest for assault, pending the addition of any other charges we can find.”

The agent tugged Elizabeth away, reciting her Miranda rights as they exited to building. Ice threaded through Peter’s veins as he glared at Fowler. This man had targeted him and Neal for months, and now had gone after his wife in the bargain. No matter what it took, whether Neal succeeded in stealing the music box or not, Peter resolved then and there that he was going to dismantle Fowler before he could reap any benefits of all his scheming and manipulation. And he was going to enjoy every minutiae of Fowler’s expression when he realized he’d been beaten.

“This isn’t over,” Peter warned darkly.

“Two weeks,” Fowler replied, as if declaring checkmate. “Now you’d better hurry, Burke, before I arrest you for assault as well. And then who’d be there to bail out your lovely wife?”

It was almost enough to send Peter charging after Fowler again. Jones caught his arm. “Peter, come on. We gotta go.”

With monumental effort, Peter let Jones lead him out of the showroom.

* * *

As he’d expected, the reception Neal’s gift had gotten at the Italian consulate was more than effusive enough to get him an invitation to the gala the following night. That alone would have been worth it, but the trip had also served other purposes: his anklet never made a sound or tripped an alarm, even though the consulate was better than twice the distance from Riverside Drive than he should’ve been able to go while on his own time.

He’d also been able to successfully scout the security measures up close. There would be no surprises, no unexpected obstacles to getting into the Consul General’s private office. Their plans could move ahead without last-minute alteration being required, at least from that quarter.

It felt good to make progress, to be free of the constraints the anklet had placed on him when Peter wasn’t by his side. He was taking the opportunity to walk the streets of Manhattan for a little while, in no real hurry to get back to June’s, when his phone rang. Surprisingly, the caller ID was marked ‘Jones’. It was rare for Clinton to call him for anything anymore; usually Peter was the one to contact him if he was needed for something. “Jones, what is it?” he asked as soon as he picked up.

_“If you were planning on going anywhere today, you’d better cancel.”_

Neal stopped, stepping into the shadow of the nearest building to avoid blocking foot traffic. “What’s going on, Clinton?”

_“Fowler and his goons just raided Elizabeth’s showroom.”_

A fist clamped around Neal’s heart. Before Jones could even start the next sentence, Neal was already moving, weaving through the crowd to the nearest place where he could hail a cab. “Is she all right? What happened?”

 _“She was arrested for assault, though Peter’s the one that actually punched the S.O.B. Peter’s on suspension for two weeks.”_ There was a pause, as though Jones was giving him a moment for that statement to sink in. _“Peter said before I dropped him at the detention center to tell you that you’re on house arrest for the duration of his suspension. Figured as long as your anklet signal says you’re at home, I’d better tell you now.”_

Something in Jones’ voice told Neal that Jones could hear the background street noises, that he knew the anklet signal wasn’t giving off Neal’s correct location. Why Jones wouldn’t come out and say it, Neal didn’t know, but the fact that he hadn’t sent warning chills down Neal’s spine. “No, I get it, Jones. I didn’t have anything major planned anyway; just needed a couple days’ downtime. It’s been a tough couple weeks.”

 _“Yeah, I get that.”_ Another pause. _“Peter’s probably gonna have Elizabeth out on bail and be headed home already; they processed her pretty fast, considering she’s an agent’s wife. You could probably give him a call in about half an hour or so, if you want to check on how she’s doing.”_

Hailing a cab, Neal slid into the backseat when it pulled up to the curb and sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for Clinton Jones’ understanding and intuition. Another unlooked-for ally in this unlikely life he’d been leading. “I will, Jones. Thanks. See you in two weeks.”

_“Yeah; see you.”_

Neal let out a heavy breath as the line disconnected, then looked up at the cabbie. “4232 Dekalb, Brooklyn,” he instructed quickly. “As fast as you can.” When the cabbie nodded, Neal slumped back against the seat, feeling the lead weight in his chest grow heavier with every mile.

* * *

By the time he’d reached Dekalb Avenue, Neal felt like he was shaking out of his skin. He kept going over and over it in his mind, unable to let go of it for even a second.

Fowler had targeted the Burkes before, but never this aggressively. Something had changed, something Neal couldn’t see yet, and both Peter and Elizabeth had now been caught in the blowback. It was his fault; Neal knew he should’ve taken the time to look into why Fowler wanted the box so badly. Knew that he should’ve seen this coming; after all, if Fowler was holding Kate under his thumb so tightly that she didn’t even dare try to visit him when they were in the same city, why should he have scrupled at targeting Elizabeth in order to get what he wanted?

Finally, when he was a block away, the cabbie stopped at a light and Neal couldn’t sit still any longer. “This’ll be fine,” he said quickly, pulling out enough cash to pay the fare and leave the cabbie a sizeable tip. “It’s just up the block.” Not bothering to even let the cabbie have a chance to offer change, Neal opened the door and made for the sidewalk, pulling out his phone to call Peter as he all but ran the rest of the way to the Burkes’ door.

 _“What is it?”_ The words were clipped, Peter clearly too incensed for any semblance of pleasantries.

“I just heard-”

Peter cut him off. _“Don’t.”_

The terseness in Peter’s voice felt like a knife in his chest. “I didn’t know this would happen, Peter,” he swore, though the words rang hollow in his heart. “I didn’t know he’d go after you.” _But I should have. He’s done it before and there’s no reason I should have expected he wouldn’t again, even on the cusp of getting what he wants. This is exactly why I have to get this bastard out of our lives._

 _“I don’t want your apology!”_ Peter snapped. _“For the record, you just bought yourself two weeks’ house arrest.”_

“Jones told me,” Neal said, angling for the familiar steps and charging up them.

_“You try leaving the apartment, you’re done for. Good luck planning your little caper.”_

Neal closed his eyes against the vitriol in Peter’s voice as he knocked on the door. He needed to see for himself that they were both all right, even if neither of them wanted to see him. He needed to apologize to Elizabeth. To make Peter understand.

_“Hold on; I’m not done with you.”_

It was a double-echo; he could hear Peter saying the words inside the house and over the phone in nearly the same moment. Neal steeled himself and thumbed the button to end the call as heavy footsteps approached and the door was pulled open, putting on his most conciliatory expression. “About that ‘house arrest’ thing…”

Peter’s expression morphed into supreme annoyance. “I don’t know why I even bother sometimes,” he muttered, closing the door behind Neal and pocketing his own now-unnecessary phone. “When Jones told you that you were on house arrest, what part didn’t you understand?”

“The part where Elizabeth got arrested and you got suspended,” Neal returned, letting a little of his own anger bleed into the words. He wanted to wrap his arms around Peter, to breathe in the scent of the older man’s skin and reassure himself that Peter was all right. Just seeing him standing there wasn’t enough. It was all he was going to get, given how things stood between them. “How could I not come?”

Despite everything, the fact that Neal had come running down to Brooklyn the moment he’d heard about what had happened washed warmth through Peter, thawing the icy rage that had overtaken him back at Elizabeth’s showroom. “Yeah,” he murmured, giving just the slightest fraction of ground. “Well, you’re here now. You might as well come in.”

Neal entered the living room and the motion drew Elizabeth’s attention away from her list of clients’ contact information, her beautiful features ragged from stress and anger. “Neal.”

“Elizabeth, are you okay?” Neal crossed to her in a heartbeat, sitting down beside her at the dining table and taking her hand. “I am so sorry. I never thought Fowler would target your business.”

“Yeah? Well, you should have.” The bitterness in Elizabeth’s voice was another blade slicing into him, one that Neal accepted without complaint. “I would’ve thought you’d dealt with men like him all the time before my husband gave you a chance to get away from the criminal world; or is Fowler really so very different from them because he carries a badge?”

“No,” Neal admitted softly. “He’s not. And you’re right: I should’ve seen this coming. I’m so sorry.”

“I have to try and salvage what I can from this mess,” El sighed, removing her hand from his and turning her attention back to her client list. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Peter: don’t apologize. Just get this guy before he can do any more damage.”

Peter, who had been hovering at the edges of their exchange, cleared his throat. “Come on, Neal; we’re going to have a _chat_ out back while El makes some calls.”

Nodding, Neal followed Peter out onto the Burkes’ small back patio. It was cold but pleasantly sunny, and Neal wished he were here under far more welcoming circumstances. They sat down facing the house, watching Elizabeth through the windows as she paced and fretted, obviously trying to placate whomever she was calling without being able to explain the entire situation.

Another charge Neal laid at his own door. It was his fault that El couldn’t even tell her clients the truth of why she’d been targeted, which would make everything she did say sound evasive rather than reassuring.

Before Peter could speak, Neal jumped in with another apology. “I never thought he’d come after Elizabeth; you have to believe me.”

“I don’t care what you thought,” Peter retorted, his voice low but acid with residual anger. “You’re helping him destroy everything I’ve worked for… everything my _wife_ has worked for.”

The unsubtle reminder that Peter’s heart, and therefore first allegiance, would always belong to Elizabeth felt like a blow. After having to tell Peter that he didn’t want the loveless life Peter had been offering him, regardless of the breathtaking intimacy they’d shared, Neal couldn’t help admitting that Peter was probably justified in highlighting just what Neal’s place in Peter’s life had been all this time.

It didn’t change how much having that pointed out to him just now stung.

“He took you out so you couldn’t stop me,” Neal reminded Peter quietly, needing to step around the emphasis Peter had placed on El’s standing as his wife. Needing to keep this from devolving any further than it already had.

“I know,” Peter admitted bitterly. “And I walked right into it.”

“Like you said, we all have our weaknesses. He’s got mine.” Neal didn’t think specifying that Peter and El were as much a vulnerability for him as Kate was would help matters at this stage. Instead, he nodded his head at the window, through which they could still see El pacing. “He found yours.”

Peter was looking at him. For just a moment, Peter was looking at him with those warm russet eyes like he wanted to say something, like he wanted to tell Neal that El wasn’t his only weakness, just like Kate wasn’t Neal’s. The moment felt charged, and Neal couldn’t help wanting to shy away from it. “When this is over,” he promised Peter instead, “we take him down. For good.”

The promise almost made Peter want to hope. Almost made him believe that Neal might still choose him, even though he was hell-bent on paying Fowler’s price for Kate’s freedom. For a moment, all he could do was gaze at Neal, the words he’d never said heavy on his tongue. Words it made no sense to say now, as they sat amidst the metaphorical wreckage Fowler had left in his wake.

Words he had no idea Neal longed to hear with every fiber of his being.

Before the moment could hang between them too long, Neal sighed and pulled his left foot up onto his chair. “Look at this,” he instructed Peter softly, turning his anklet so that Peter could see the transmitter hub.

Peter blinked when he saw what Neal wanted him to see. “Neal, your light is off.”

“Yeah,” Neal agreed. “But according to Jones, the monitoring station says I’m at home.”

“Why isn’t it transmitting?” Peter asked instinctively. Neal gave him a meaningful look and Peter spit the name out like an epithet. “Fowler. He shut you down so you could steal the box. How’d he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Neal admitted.

It galled Peter to even think it, but Fowler had been outplaying them nearly from the beginning. Except now, rather than one step ahead of them, he was three. He’d learned from their last two encounters how formidable a team he and Neal could make, and he’d rather effectively neutralized their ability to work as one this time. “I’m almost impressed,” he groused under his breath.

“You’re not going to arrest me?” Neal was hesitant to even bring it up; despite the agreements they’d made at the start of their affair, Peter was still an officer of the law. If he was dead set on stopping Neal from stealing the music box away from the Italians, having Neal locked up was still a viable option.

“I can’t; I don’t have a badge!” Peter wished he could’ve threatened to have Jones do so. Wished he could even bring himself to call the Marshals and notify them that the anklet was malfunctioning. The fact remained that Peter had given up on even considering stick-and-carrot tactics when he and Neal had started their affair, and falling in love with Neal along the way had made such a thing even more impossible. At this point, Peter could no more be responsible for Neal going back to jail than he could pluck the moon from the sky.

Frustration mounting, Peter stood and paced to the window, looking in at the distraught form of his wife and feeling more helpless than he’d ever been in his life. “All right,” he said, turning back to Neal and trying to reason his way through the problem. “Let’s say you pull off this heist. You really think he’s gonna let you and Kate go?”

It was a question Neal hadn’t thought about too closely in recent days. Elizabeth was right, after all: Neal had dealt with men like Fowler in the criminal world before. Men like him were better known for continually moving the goalposts once they’d bent a mark to their will than they were for honoring their original terms. But Neal wasn’t just doing this to try and appease Fowler. “I need to know if she’s…”

The expression on Peter’s face stilled the words in Neal’s throat. Hurt and resignation, and something Neal couldn’t put a name to. Talking about whether or not Kate loved him felt intrusive somehow. Even now, when they were fully clothed and as far apart as they’d ever felt. But Neal needed the question answered for good and all, or he’d be stuck in place forever. “You’d do the same for Elizabeth,” he offered instead, hoping that Peter would understand that, at least.

He did, looking back through the window again. Elizabeth deserved better than this; they’d both failed to shield her from Fowler today. Peter wasn’t going to let that pass unanswered. “After today,” he admitted softly, “I’m not going to argue that.”

Peter knew that he couldn’t stop Neal from going after the box; he had to accept that and move past it. It was well past time he stopped playing Fowler’s game and started his own.

Looking down at Neal’s stricken expression, Peter let himself smile for the first time in hours as new determination took root. “I’m gonna beat him.”

“What are you going to do?” Neal asked, feeling some of his own helplessness fall away in the face of Peter’s new resolve. Somehow, no matter how low he ever got, Peter’s steadiness was able to bring him back from it. Yet another aspect of having gotten close to this man that Neal had missed in the past several days.

“Fowler took my badge,” Peter replied. “I’m going to take his. He’s aiding you in illegal activity.”

Neal felt a smirk draw its way across his face. “I’m just doing my part,” he offered with a shrug, then couldn’t help adding a warning. “He’ll be watching you and everyone you work with.”

“I know.” Peter paused, musing carefully. “I’ll need help from somebody with F.B.I. access who Fowler can’t link to me. Somebody I can trust.”

Though Neal had a nearly perfect memory, he knew Peter had worked in the Bureau for over a decade before Neal’s deal had begun. He couldn’t even begin to guess who Peter might be thinking of. “You got someone in mind?”

“Of course I do,” Peter replied with a grin. “But that’s need-to-know information right now.” Neal made a face and Peter moved to sit back down beside him. “You’re adamant that going after that box is the only way forward for you; I can’t stop you and you know it. But I won’t be responsible for you not getting it because you’re focused on my side of the game. You insist on doing this? Then you concentrate on playing your angle and keep your nose out of mine.”

Neal grimaced but gave in. “I know this is usually your line… but please be careful, Peter. If anything else happened to either of you…”

The unspoken words hung in the air. Peter wanted to reach out and draw Neal close. To kiss away Neal’s fears and convince Neal that taking Fowler down his way would be more effective in the long run than going after the music box would ever be. That if Fowler could be exposed for what he was, his demand for the music box would be a moot point and Kate would get her freedom.

But Peter had given him the choice, and Neal had chosen. He’d promised to respect that, no matter what else happened.

“You, too, sweetheart,” Peter asked him, knowing Neal couldn’t hear the way the endearment had become Peter’s code for ‘I love you’. “You, too.”


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes Diana!

  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/00004ab7/)  
  


 

****

~ooooOOOoooo~

The air in the park was crisp as Peter sat waiting, coffee in hand to ward off the chill. He’d left Elizabeth asleep in bed almost before sunrise to get here this early; she’d barely murmured in response to the gentle brush of his lips as he’d tucked the blankets back up around her before creeping from their bedroom.

She deserved the rest, especially since neither Burke had slept particularly well during the night. The previous day had been far too stressful for that to be possible.

Glancing up as he heard the soft clack of heels on the bricks paving the park’s courtyard, Peter smiled broadly in greeting. Diana Berrigan returned it just as easily as she sat down, clearly having gotten on the earliest possible commuter flight from D.C. as she’d promised. Just like Jones, he’d always been able to count on her. “Thanks for coming.”

“You knew I would, boss.” Her dark eyes sparkled in the sunlight as Diana let her smile break into a full grin. She’d missed working with this man in the past six months; this quiet, competent man that had taken her under his wing nearly half a decade earlier and fostered both her talents and her confidence. Turning down a chance to help him was simply unthinkable, even if he hadn’t been able to give her the details when he’d asked her to drop everything and come back to New York.

Peter chuckled, the easy camaraderie they’d shared slotting back into place as if she’d never left. “You don’t have to call me that anymore. How’s… uh…?”

“Christy?” Diana supplied. It didn’t offend her that he couldn’t summon her lover’s name; he’d never closely tracked his agents’ personal lives, reckoning it none of his business unless it began to impact their job performance or someone on his team needed a confidante that they couldn’t find elsewhere. “Oh, she’s good.”

“Good.” Peter hated small talk. Was uncomfortable with it, even among people he considered his family. But he’d be damned if he’d rush this conversation as if he didn’t care about her life, not when what he was asking of her could effectively ruin it if things went badly. “Good, good, good. You guys like D.C.?”

Diana shrugged. “Different city; same paperwork.” She leveled a bright-eyed expression his way, concealing how she was gauging his reaction under a veil of exuberance. “I should’ve stuck around: things are probably more interesting with Caffrey.”

“ _Too_ interesting,” Peter agreed, sobering at the mention of Neal. _If you only knew the half of it, Diana._

“Huh.” Diana had talked to Jones off and on in the past few months, usually when he needed information from her about a case she’d worked before her transfer to Washington. When he’d told her that he believed Peter and Neal to be lovers, she’d been sure he was putting her on; she’d only been joking around with him when she’d remarked on Peter and Neal’s obvious chemistry together.

From the look on Peter’s face, even if Jones was overestimating their relationship, it probably wasn’t by much. “He the reason I’m here?” She asked it softly, her own joviality falling away.

The look Peter returned as he nodded was grave. “Diana, what I’m about to ask you to do is a lot more than paperwork,” he warned, glancing around to be certain they weren’t being watched together. “I need you to look into an OPR agent: Agent Garrett Fowler. Somehow he’s manipulating Neal’s anklet.”

“Why?”

Peter sighed. “Neal has access to something he wants.”

_Well, that’s nice and vague. Whatever’s going on must be really bad if Peter’s trying to give me plausible deniability for the details._ “Sounds like he hasn’t changed,” she remarked dryly.

“No,” Peter agreed. “Same old Neal.”

“He still wearing the hat?” It had been a rather adorable quirk of Neal’s that she’d rather liked, but the question was also an easy way to lighten Peter’s mood. When he chuffed out an ‘oh, please’, Diana laughed with him. “Well, I suppose we can let him keep a vice or two, and it is a good-looking hat.”

Peter smiled wryly at her, appreciating her efforts to keep him from brooding. “Fowler’s come after both Neal and me more than once,” he clarified once their renewed laughter died away. “He tried to frame Neal for theft and me for accepting a bribe. We also know he had a dirty federal judge in his pocket, and that she was signing off on all of the warrants he was requesting for a covert op he’s running called **Mentor**.”

Nodding, Diana let her gaze drift across the people on the street before she focused on Peter again. “What’d he do this time?”

The fact that she believed him without question, that she knew his calling her back to New York had been precipitated by some new action Fowler had taken without needing to be told, released a quiet rush of relief. “He executed a search warrant on Elizabeth’s showroom yesterday,” Peter explained. “Accused her of purchasing contraband foodstuffs from outside the country. I lost my temper when he arrested her and punched him, and he slapped me with a two-week suspension.”

Diana snorted in disgust. “Sounds like he had it coming. Is Elizabeth okay?”

“As well as can be expected, considering it happened in front of some of her clients.” Her concern for El made Peter smile. “And he definitely had it coming. But that still means I’ve been taken out of play at what’s shaping up to be a critical moment for whatever he’s got planned.”

For a moment, Diana debated. Peter was trying to keep her in the dark as much as he could, obviously hoping to shield her from as much potential fallout as possible if Fowler caught wind of her involvement. But Diana had grown up the daughter of a diplomat. She knew very well how to guard secrets: her own and those of the people she cared about. She didn’t need to be protected from them. “Peter… if you want my help, I need to know what you know,” she finally told him. “What’s Caffrey got that Fowler’s so desperate to have?”

Caught off-guard by her directness, Peter turned and studied his former probie. Jones had accepted Peter’s evasive vagueness about everything with little comment; none of the others on the team even really knew what was happening. But Diana was the one that had never been afraid to stand as Peter’s equal even when she wasn’t. The one that he’d known would be a force of nature when she came into her own. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen her, once upon a time.

She could handle this.

“Neal’s spent years trying to get his hands on a music box that once belonged to the Russian czars,” Peter told her. “Gold inlaid with Baltic amber, and part of the treasure that the Nazis looted from the Catherine Palace during World War II. Supposedly, Neal’s finally located it somewhere here in New York, and Fowler’s manipulating the signal from Neal’s tracking anklet so that Neal can steal it for him.”

“And what does Caffrey get out of all this?” Diana asked, both eyebrows arched in surprise.

“Kate.”

The way Peter bit off the girl’s name told Diana far more than any gossip Jones could ever have spread. Diana let the surprise melt off her face, assimilating the information, and nodded once. “I’ll get you everything I can and meet you at your house in a few hours,” she promised.

Something that had been knotted in Peter’s chest since the previous night loosened at that. If Diana was on board, he still had a chance of winning this thing. “Thanks, Diana.”

* * *

By the time Diana arrived at the Burke home, files in hand, Elizabeth had left to meet with her business attorney. Peter winced when he thought of the expense involved, but it couldn’t be helped: unless it could be proven that Fowler had deliberately trumped up the accusations against her, the investigation into her business would proceed.

One more in the myriad of reasons Peter had to unveil how dirty Fowler really was.

“This is everything I could find on Garrett Fowler,” Diana told him as they spread the files out over the dining table. “There’s not much here.”

On its face, Fowler’s personnel file was so ordinary as to be completely unremarkable: only a few years older than Neal, Fowler had been posted to a violent crimes task force in Miami after joining the Bureau. He’d taken a leave of absence after his wife’s murder, which remained unsolved, and when he’d returned, he’d been transferred to his current billet in OPR. Due to the nature of his work, most of his case files weren’t accessible to Diana without a court order, though she’d somehow gotten her hands on a smattering of surveillance requisitions.

“I put in a request to go after his files,” Diana continued as she sat down. “I’m just waiting on the judge.”

“We don’t need much; he’s aiding a premeditated robbery.” Peter scanned the information in the files in a matter of moments, though it was easy to see that they were largely useless with respect to what they needed to prove. It was enough to make Peter’s teeth grind; time was running out in more ways than one, and coming at the problem straight-on was only going to be a colossal waste of it. “The anklet is the key,” he insisted finally, wishing there was even one thing related to **Mentor** in the stack Diana had gotten.

“You sure it’s him?” Diana asked. Peter’s instincts were usually spot-on, but there was always the chance that Fowler was relying on someone outside the Bureau to help him in addition to using his own subordinate agents when he couldn’t act directly.

“Fowler’s doctored Caffrey’s information in the past,” Peter confirmed, looking up from the files at her, “and he’s doing it now. I need to know _how_.”

“Well,” Diana mused, “Marshals monitor the anklet.”

“Department of Justice supersedes their authority,” Peter reminded her. “Fowler could override them and get access…” A thought struck him: one that Peter hadn’t considered before but that might give them a way in. “Or he’s altering the data remotely.”

Diana caught the train of thought he’d started. “You can’t do that from just any Internet connection.”

“You’d need a secure line,” Peter agreed. The answer was staring them in the face. “He’s doing it from OPR offices; they have one in New York. That’s where I need to go.”

It was a plan, a way forward that Fowler wouldn’t expect Peter to take. But Peter wasn’t the one that could take it; Diana saw that immediately. “Nobody gets into that building without federal-”

“Federal clearance and an appointment,” Peter finished, the words sour from his disappointment. His suspension was proving even more obstructive than he’d wanted to believe. “They wouldn’t let me within a hundred yards.”

_Oh, boss… even when you ask for help, you still want to take all the risks. Must drive Caffrey wild._ “But they’d let me.”

His eyes lifting back to Diana’s, Peter took in her smiling, expectant face. She was right, and it would be perfect; Fowler hadn’t even met Diana to his knowledge, and certainly wouldn’t be expecting her even if he had, since she wasn’t currently assigned to the Manhattan White Collar unit. Her offer was more than he ever could’ve asked of her, which reminded Peter even more sharply of how much he’d missed her presence on his team. “Fowler finds out,” he warned, “and it’s career suicide.”

Diana made a face at him. “I came here to help you.”

She wouldn’t let him turn her offer down. Much as he wanted to, Peter didn’t have any options left, let alone a better one to suggest instead. “Thank you,” he said simply, hoping she knew how grateful he was.

Standing up, Diana took her coat from the back of the chair. She would need to get down to the OPR offices and scout around; finding her in and ensuring that Fowler wouldn’t be breathing down her neck when she used it would take longer than either of them would like, and the sooner she got started, the better. “This music box,” she asked Peter, turning back to him. “What happens if he gets it?”

“I don’t know,” Peter confessed. Neither he nor Neal had any clue why Fowler wanted the box so badly; Peter wasn’t entirely sure he cared. At this point, stopping whatever plans Fowler had hatched hinged on keeping the box out of his possession, and that was what Peter was focused on. The whys and wherefores could wait. “But we need to make sure he doesn’t.”

Nodding, Diana picked up her purse from the coffee table and left.

* * *

Once again alone in the house, Peter folded the files away and moved to sit on the couch. Turning on the television, he tried to concentrate on news... a football game... anything else... trying to at least distract himself from fretting over the things happening outside these four walls that he couldn’t control.

He knew Neal would be going after the music box soon; probably this very day. He knew that Neal was the best thief, forger, and con artist he’d ever seen, and likely the best he’d see in a lifetime. If Neal had a plan to obtain the box from wherever it had been hidden away, Peter knew it was only a matter of time before it was in Neal’s hands.

Hands that knew his body almost as well as Elizabeth’s did, though they’d only been lovers for a fraction of the time that Peter and El had been. Hands that Peter knew were nimble and gentle, capable of gripping tightly enough to bruise or brushing so lightly that Peter barely felt it, even when his skin was so sensitized from Neal’s kisses that every nerve was alight.

_“It’s not the life I want.”_

Pain lanced deep at the memory, sharp enough to drive Peter’s eyes closed against it. Six words shouldn’t have that kind of power; shouldn’t be enough to bring Peter to tears by simply recalling them.

“You didn’t want to need him as badly as you do,” he told himself in the quiet of the empty house. Satchmo, responding to something in his voice, jumped up onto the couch and looked at his master with deep, soulful eyes. Peter smiled, and wrapped an arm around his faithful dog, glad for the comfort that this steadfast companion had offered in the past few years.

It was true: Peter had resisted the intense connection that he and Neal shared, had even tried to call a halt to their relationship, all because he needed Neal far more than he wanted to. Far more than he felt he should, and certainly more than he had any right to ask of the younger man. Peter had a wife, after all. He was married to a wonderful woman, and had spent a decade trying to be worthy of the heart she’d offered him so freely. If Neal was so certain he could get the same from Kate, even with the lack of trust between them, who was Peter to even want to deny him that?

Except Peter couldn’t shake the absolute certainty that while Neal might love Kate, she wasn’t what he needed. Peter had seen the way Neal gravitated towards him not out of lust, but out of a driving need to be safe, to be able to trust the person sharing his bed without reserve. It was written on Neal’s face in unguarded moments, and Peter responded to it instinctively.

Kate Moreau didn’t make Neal feel safe. Neal couldn’t trust Kate; he’d openly admitted as much and had never tried to take it back or rationalize it.

Life with Peter might not be what Neal wanted, but it was what he needed. Peter knew it in his bones. It was only a question of whether or not Neal would come to accept that as Peter had… before making a mistake that he couldn’t walk back.

Turning up the television volume, Peter stroked his dog’s fur and tried to relax, praying that time would somehow be on his side.

* * *

Across town, Mozzie poured he and Neal each just enough wine for a toast for luck. It was nearly time; their preparations were all but complete, and soon they would need to be in their places and on point.

It was a dance Neal never tired of, whether it was for Peter and a case, or his own motives and ends. The adrenaline kick, the moment in every job when things just dropped into place and there was no going back. The payoff when he accomplished what others thought impossible.

And that moment would be all the sweeter for the expression on Kate’s face when she realized what he’d done to protect her. The only thing that would be missing was Peter’s admiration for his skills.

“How’d it go?” Mozzie asked, bringing the glasses to Neal’s dining table.

“Good,” Neal replied shortly, the question pulling him out of his thoughts. Preoccupation had been almost his basic resting pulse in the past few days, but he couldn’t afford to give in to it just now. From this moment until they were clear of the consulate, it was imperative that Neal maintain focus as if his life depended on it. And the lives of the people he loved as well.

“The consulate accepted your gift?” Mozzie pressed.

Neal nodded. “I spoke to Mr. Tomassi, the consulate manager. Fancelli’s Study of Vulcan is now in the inner sanctum.” He couldn’t help the way his fingers twitched out air quotes as he named the piece, even though both of he and Mozzie knew that the gift had been made in this very room barely forty-eight hours earlier and not in seventeenth-century Italy.

“How’s the security?”

“Like we expected,” Neal confirmed, sipping at his wine. “The outer door opens with a key card.”

Mozzie brushed past that; key cards were a simple, well-timed lift. “And what about the inner door?” he prompted. “Can we get through?”

Though he had a few ideas about it, Mozzie’s tendency towards excitability made Neal reluctant to share them. He was the one that would need to get in first, after all, if their plan was going to work. “I’ll figure out a way,” he assured Mozzie with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

“He invited you to the party?” If Neal hadn’t been invited, Mozzie doubted that he’d be quite so blasé about everything at this stage. But he needed to confirm every detail he could one last time before leaving to get into his own position for the afternoon.

“He did,” Neal confirmed again.

“Alex?”

“She’s the duke’s plus-one.” Neal smiled, knowing that Mozzie was a little compulsive about making sure nothing had been left to chance if they could help it with this kind of con. It was a pattern they’d followed many times over their acquaintance. “You?”

“You’re looking at the new assistant server… trainee.” It was the way of their world that Mozzie seemed to always be relegated to those kinds of roles as his in for a con. He’d accepted it long ago, and working with Neal, he’d never been made to feel like he was less vital because of it. “If I play my cards right, I get dental in three months.”

“All right,” Neal said, chuckling slightly at Mozzie’s good humor. There was nothing glamorous about the way Mozzie fit into this caper, but his friend never seemed to resent it the way some people might, and Neal was grateful for that. “Then we’re ready.” He stepped closer to one of the dining chairs and put his left foot up on the seat. “Let’s cut it off; you wanna do the honors?”

“I feel like I should make a toast or something.” Mozzie grabbed for the scissors Neal had laid out on the table with his free hand, eager to get the tracking device off his friend. _May this heist go exactly as we need it to, so that Neal never has to put another one on ever again._

Neal picked up his own glass, clearly in agreement, and Mozzie searched for the words he wanted. “‘We feel free when we escape,’” he quoted, “‘even if it be but from the frying pan into the fire.’ Eric Hoffer.” Neal nodded with a smile, and reached down to hold the strap away from his ankle with one finger.

Mozzie felt a distinct satisfaction in cleaving the device between the scissor blades. Even more when the device simply fell away into Neal’s hand, with no lights or alerts going off. It was silent and dim; the dead weight Mozzie had always regarded it to be unveiled at last. “No sirens.”

There was an undeniable sense of freedom in the moment as Neal gazed at the recumbent device: not from the lack of the anklet’s heft around his leg, which he’d felt often enough in the course of his work for Peter’s team. But rather from being able to cut the thing away of his own volition, not out of necessity, and knowing that there was a very real chance that it would never be placed back on him again. “Into the fire,” Neal replied, reaching up to clink their glasses together.

Now, they were truly in play.

* * *

Guests began arriving at the consulate by early afternoon; it promised to be a long evening for those that had decided to attend purely based on a desire to spend several hours eating, drinking and socializing. Neal was glad of it; executing these types of plans after dark might sound more romantic, but always came with a host of possible complications. This job would be difficult enough as it was, especially since Alex had remained mum on the description of the safe he needed to crack. Even now, he didn’t know what he’d be looking for once he got past the security measures.

It was another stroke of luck that Neal was able to catch the consulate manager near the first security door as he arrived; the man was obviously preparing to go greet their guests, and Neal was able to catch sight of him placing his key card into the pocket of his jacket as he closed the door. “Signor Tomassi!”

“Ah! Mr. Dunvarry!” The manager strode towards Neal eagerly, having no idea that Neal was any different from anyone else streaming through the consulate’s doors.

“Please call me George,” Neal offered with a smile as they shook hands in greeting, knowing that the familiarity would be disarming.

“George! Thank you again for your remarkable donation.”

Neal put on an air of abashed humility. “Well, I know how important Fancelli’s work is to Italian sculpture. I couldn’t just let it sit around in my family’s attic collecting dust.”

“No, of course not,” Tomassi agreed. “The Consul General has requested the piece be placed in perfect view of his office. Fancelli is his favorite artist.”

“Really? I had no idea.” Though he’d long ago perfected the art of appearing surprised, Neal had to remind himself to not oversell it. His nerves were starting to key up a touch, and he covered it by deciding to try one of his options for getting past the security doors. “Could I see it?”

Tomassi’s face fell in open regret. “I’m sorry; I’m afraid that won’t be possible. But rest assured, it’s very safe.”

_Not by the end of the night, it won’t be,_ Neal couldn’t help thinking, even as he offered Tomassi a smile and let the man herd him back towards the gathering crowd with a wish for an enjoyable evening.

Stepping to the open bar, Neal ordered a Ketel One vodka and turned to watch the crowd. Though anyone might have thought he was just people-watching, his eyes were sharp, seeking the familiar shapes of his co-conspirators as the stage was set.

Mozzie, by a doorway, drink tray in hand.

Alex, on the arm of the duke as they came through from the security checkpoint on the first floor.

_Time to dance._

A sip of vodka and a nod. Mozzie moving towards the center of the room.

A tap to his right jacket pocket. Alex excusing herself from the duke and crossing to him.

Mozzie bumping Tomassi. Alex stopping, as if waiting for them to move. Mozzie steadying his tray. Alex stepping around them. Mozzie moving on again, working the crowd. Alex joining him at the bar, face a studiously polite mask.

“Nice lift.” A bow to Alex, kissing the hand that had palmed the card. Dropping it into his own, a leaf falling from a bough.

“This’ll get you through the first door.” Alex reaching for champagne from the bartender with both hands now free, lips barely moving around the words. “You clean up nice.”

“Not so bad yourself.” Waiting for information. Now was the last moment, or it would all be for naught.

“Good luck, Caffrey.” Alex turning, starting to cross back to her escort.

A missed step. A drop in the timing. “Alex.” Her name a reproval, drawing her back. “Which safe is it?”

Three blinks of her eyes: hesitation; mistrust; concession. Another beat off-rhythm. “Triple-walled case-hardened steel. 1943 MacKenzie.”

Difficult. Not impossible. The tools were right, waiting for his hands to wield them. “Couldn’t make this easy for us, could they?”

Two more blinks. Playful. “Where’s the fun in that?”

They weren’t on the same music. He should’ve known. It couldn’t be helped now. “I’ll see you on the inside.”

Alex turning again, taking champagne to her date. The rhythm of his heart picking up as he took a flute of his own from a passing server’s tray. Stepping to the middle of the room, pitching his voice above the low din of polite conversation. “Excuse me! Scusi. Pardon. I’d like to make a toast to our gracious hosts.”

Glasses raised in response. All eyes on him now. No turning back. “And all of you! Because this is a very special night. Oh, it’s special to me, anyway.”

Confusion now. Awkwardness. He now called the tune. “You probably have no idea who I am, so I’m going to tell you: I’m an internationally-renowned art thief!”

Laughter. More confusion. People trying to gauge if it really was a joke.

“And tonight? I am here to rob you.”

Shock. Disbelief. Security moving through the crowd to reach him.

“Cheers!” Drinking the champagne, the effervescence tickling his throat. Placing the flute on a nearby server’s tray as they reached him.

Moving again, strong hands dragging him by the arms. No reason to resist. Past the first door; down the stairs. Past the second, opened by Tomassi’s own order as he joined his men.

Down to a kitchenette, quiet and away from the crowd. Catching himself against the counter as they shoved him. Knowing what would come next. Needing to hold the measure a few moments longer, long enough for Alex and Mozzie to dance their own parts.

“Tell me why you’re really here.” Tomassi, no longer gracious. Certainly not amused. Just as Neal had planned.

“Oh, I told you: I’m here to rob you.” Peter would be proud; it was truthful enough to hurt. Did hurt when the blow impacted his stomach, doubling him over. “Well, now I’m definitely not going to tell you.”

Fire alarms upping the tempo. Right on cue.

“Give me your walkie.” Tomassi glancing at the ceiling, once again confused. “Lock him in here; come with me.” Orders thrown carelessly, no thought to whether or not they played into Neal’s hands.

Using the key card to unlock the door. Drawing up tight in the tiny alcove of the kitchenette’s threshold. Eyes on the glass doors no one could enter. Waiting. Waiting. Holding for the next measure.

“Neal? Where are you?” Mozzie in place, quiet just in case.

“The other side of the glass.” Breath held. Mozzie raising a digital camera on an extension pole, capturing an image of an empty hallway from the security camera’s angle.

Seconds ticking. Mozzie changing the setting on the camera, raising it again, steadying it into position. “Go.”

Time to move. To run down the hall, to a door he’d only seen on a map, the key card letting him through. The safe in plain view, tall enough to reach his shoulders, and sitting nearby, his statue under a sheet.

“Some of my best work.” Something like regret, no matter the greater good. The hammer pulling away easily, as it had been made to do. Smashing open the back, shattering the carefully shaped spine. Yanking free the tool bag wrapped in plastic and concealed within his Trojan Horse.

Muscle memory taking over. Ignoring the shrill scream of the drill as it bored into seventy-five-year-old steel. A slight change in pressure telling when he was through. The scope slipping easily into the space where the tumblers were visible.

Seeing the mechanism, his fingers moving on instinct. The pins dropping into place for the last time. Telltale snap of a releasing lock. Handles twisting in his grip to let the doors open wide.

_It’s beautiful._

Though the safe had no interior lights, the amber seemed to glow anyway: living stone trapped in the impassive grip of gold. A cherub’s face sculpted on the front stared back at him, three more sitting on small posts atop the second tier. Neal barely felt the smile of relief that curled his lips as he reached in, taking either side of the precious object into his hands.

A thrill that had nothing to do with success raced up his arms as he drew it forth, lacing through his skin as he stared at it. It was almost as though the creation itself was alive, reacting to his touch with a magic born from blood and time. It was no wonder Fowler was so desperate to have it. However he’d found out about it, it was the box that possessed him. It wanted to possess Neal, too. To make him its own and play out its secrets, now that he’d won his way to it and taken it for his own.

_No. Not yours. You can’t keep this, Neal; it’s the price of Kate’s freedom. But it won’t be the price of anything but your own imprisonment if you don’t go now._

Shaking himself from the moment, Neal slipped the box into the canvas bag he’d brought the tools in, then wrapped the plastic sheath around it to prevent the tool edges from causing it any damage. Tucking the drill and scope inside, Neal zipped it closed and strode from the room, grabbing up the hammer from his statue as he passed.

“Take your time, why don’t you?” Mozzie snapped, still holding position on the other side of the security doors. “You’re losing your touch.”

Neal ignored it; Mozzie was the most exposed of all of them right now, and it made his irritability understandable. He made for the door, ready to buzz Mozzie through so they could make their escape.

“Let me in.”

Alex’s voice from behind them drew Neal’s attention, causing him to swing around away from Mozzie before he reached the door. She was supposed to be securing their exit. _Something’s wrong… she wouldn’t be breaking formation if something wasn’t wrong._ Against his better instincts, Neal walked to the wrought metal door she stood behind and opened it with the key card. “Everything okay?”

She nodded as the door latch opened, stepping through to embrace him with a triumphant smile. “You did it.”

“We’re not out of here yet,” he admonished. Though the consulate’s fire alarms had been shut down, something like them was still going off inside Neal’s mind. It wasn’t like Alex to go so far off plan when they weren’t compromised…

A shout echoed beyond Mozzie’s position. “That’s very touching, guys!” Mozzie shouted, tossing caution aside in favor of not getting arrested. “But they’re coming!”

Turning his back on Alex, Neal raced to Mozzie’s door, digging into his pocket for the card again…

And coming up empty. The card wasn’t there.

_Alex… **no**_.

Neal turned back towards his fellow thief in time to see the door he’d just let her through closing behind her. She stood on the other side, the bag with their prize clutched in the delicate fingers of one hand, a not-quite-regretful expression on her beautiful face.

The other hand dangled the key card through a gap in the wrought metal. Without a word, Alex let it drop to the floor, then turned and walked away.

“Alex.” Neal rushed across the space again, diving to scoop the card up. Alex was disappearing fast; in another few moments, she would be gone, and Neal knew she wouldn’t be using any of the escape routes they’d discussed during their planning sessions. “Alex!”

In another few moments, consulate security would arrive and arrest Mozzie, still trapped beyond the other security door. He could either let Mozzie through and make good their escape together, or he could abandon Mozzie to the Italian authorities and chase after Alex, who was carrying away his only chance to free Kate and Peter from Fowler.

A choice that felt just as impossible as choosing between a future with Kate and a future with Peter.

“Hurry up!” Mozzie was in panic mode now, time very nearly run out. “They’re coming!”

_I’m sorry, Kate. I hope you understand._ Grabbing up the hammer and dashing to the door holding Mozzie back, Neal swiped the card as fast as he could. “Come on, Mozzie.” Shoving the door closed again rather than letting it swing on its own, Neal slipped the handle of the hammer through the looping grips on his side of the door and angled it until it was firmly wedged, temporarily blockading the doors from being opened again.

They were just barely fast enough. Tomassi and his security contingent arrived as Neal was herding Mozzie through the wrought metal door, the two of them racing on pure adrenaline to their emergency escape point on an upstairs balcony.

“You ready to do this?” Neal asked, strapping on the gear Mozzie had stored up here during the catering prep as fast as he could.

“Ask me when we’re back on American soil,” Mozzie snapped. He secured the lines faster than either man might have been able to do if they weren’t being chased, all hesitation gone in the face of pure flight response.

Neal nodded grimly as they climbed over the edge, set their feet, and rappelled to the waiting ground below.

By the time security found where they’d abandoned the rappelling mounts, all three of the thieves had vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amber of any kind really is known as a living stone, since it is created from tree resin that has fossilized rather than being a crystalline matrix like many other semi-precious stones. It is also known to continue changing minutely in appearance over time, which contributes to the impression that it is "alive". Baltic amber in particular is known for its high succinic acid content, succinic acid being known in turn for its properties as an acid reducer and pain reliever.


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm reiterating my tissue warning, guys. Odds are you'll need it for this chapter. For everyone reading in America: I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/00004ab7/)

****

~ooooOOOoooo~

By the time Neal made it back to June’s, he was all but limping from exhaustion. Mozzie had vanished in a separate direction the moment they’d shed their rappelling harnesses, both of them knowing it was easier to evade capture if they parted ways. Neal had gotten the prearranged signal on his cell phone that Mozzie had made it back to a safe zone, and had responded in kind. They would check in on one another later, when things had a chance to cool down somewhat.

June heard Neal come in and met him at the bottom of the stairs. “I take it something didn’t go to plan,” she asserted gently, gauging his appearance and expression in an instant.

“You could say that,” he agreed, all but sagging against the balustrade.

“I’m sorry.” She put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Peter’s waiting for you upstairs.”

Surprise crossed Neal’s face, morphing into a kind of numb exhaustion. He wasn’t sure he could deal with whatever Peter was there to say just now, especially since he could easily guess why Peter had shown up. Just because he was on a suspension didn’t mean Peter was without resources, and there was always the police band scanner at the townhouse in Brooklyn. “Thanks for the warning.” With a smile and a squeeze of June’s hand, Neal mounted the stairs to his suite.

Sure enough, Peter was seated at the dining table when Neal came through the door. Neal closed it tiredly, wishing that Peter was there to help him relax, to comfort or pamper him. He’d grown accustomed to the way Peter cared for him when they were together, and Alex’s betrayal had left him in sore need of it. And yet, the set of Peter’s shoulders told Neal that wasn’t why his lover was here.

“There’s an APB out for a man of interest in a slick suit,” Peter informed him without preamble. He couldn’t bring himself to turn around and see Neal with the damnable box in his hands, those blue eyes shining in triumph. He needed a moment before he could bear that, not to mention the risks he now knew Neal had taken to get it. “Apparently, he rappelled down the wall of a consulate.”

Annoyance welled up in Neal’s chest: hurt that Peter’s first words weren’t wondering if he was all right, that Peter couldn’t even look at him. “It’ll be fine,” he replied acidly, with a shrug that Peter didn’t see. “They’re not going to prosecute for the theft of an item they weren’t supposed to have in the first place.”

As Neal came around to sit down near Peter, Peter’s eyes raked over him in assessment. He’d been sick with worry upon hearing the call go out over the police band, and had come on complete instinct. Neal looked rumpled but unharmed, highly annoyed, on the verge of exhausted collapse… and to Peter’s eyes, somehow completely adorable.

He was also empty-handed.

Neal hadn’t set anything down before walking over; Peter would’ve heard it in the quiet of the room. And with Neal banking everything Kate-related on delivering the box to Fowler, there was no way he’d let it out of his sight or safe-keeping. Not even Mozzie would’ve been able to convince him to hand it over.

_He… failed? That’s impossible; Neal doesn’t fail at anything he sets his mind to. What happened?_ “An item you don’t seem to have,” Peter observed, knowing it would lead Neal to answer the question he couldn’t bring himself to voice just now.

“Yeah, well... let’s just say Alex had other plans,” Neal snapped. Even having to say the words sparked a fresh wave of fury. _I should’ve seen it coming. After she brought up Denmark, after I turned her down at the pool, when she wouldn’t tell me the location of the safe even at the last minute until I cornered her… everything I know about her tells me I should’ve seen this coming. Stupid… and now Kate and Peter are going to pay the price._ “I should’ve seen it coming,” he muttered aloud.

Privately, Peter thought so as well; he didn’t need to know Alexandra Hunter to know she was ruthless, and the hunt for this music box seemed to exacerbate that in everyone but Neal. “Any idea where she went?” he found himself asking, unable to resist the urge to try and erase that angry, lost expression in Neal’s eyes.

“She didn’t stick to the plan,” Neal negated. He watched Peter’s eyes narrow, watched the man whose talent for catching criminals rivalled Neal’s own abilities at evasion try to work the problem. The fact that Peter even wanted to at this point, no matter what else lay between them, made warmth spread out around the anxious knot in Neal’s chest. “She got out of the consulate a different way. If Alex wants to disappear, she does.” He shook his head, feeling utterly spent. “Without that box, Fowler’s side wins.”

And there it was, as plain as the skyline outside the bank of windows behind Neal: Neal felt trapped, boxed in. He couldn’t see any other way clear of the problem, and he had bent all his time and energy towards making the one way out that he could see possible.

It wasn’t his fault; Peter knew that. Peter was trained to a different way of thinking than Neal was. Where Neal instinctively tried to beat criminals at their own game, even the ones that carried a badge, Peter’s default was to beat them by exposing their crimes and letting justice take its course. Each on their own was effective in their own ways. But when they worked together, they were unstoppable.

Except they hadn’t been together on this, not in the way they should’ve been. Peter could see that now. He’d kept Neal at arm’s length about the box when he should’ve been by his side from the moment they’d realized Fowler’s involvement. And now that Peter was finally at the table, working the case in the only way he knew how, Neal was too far down the rabbit hole to see anything but the warren in the shadows, to see that his fastest way out was up into the light.

Well and so: Peter had done more with less. Neal trusted him, or had for up until this point. If Neal could just trust him a little while longer, Peter would bring the case home, and then Alex and her music box would be irrelevant. And whatever came with Kate, once Fowler was out of the picture and she felt free to encroach into Neal’s life again, Peter would handle as best he could.

“I need to know: what about us?” Peter asked, crossing his arms on the table and leaning in. “Are we on the same side here?”

The question caught Neal by surprise, and his heart cracked a little under the weight of it. Peter was the one person in Neal’s whole life that he trusted, who had given Neal a touchstone that he wore even now to remind him of the fact that he could. That Peter even had to ask that question meant that he wasn’t as sure of Neal as Neal was of him.

Neal could fix that, given time. Given that Peter was willing to try. But Kate and her feelings were still an unknown, and there was only one thing Peter could say that would make Neal turn his back on that and do everything in his power to make sure Peter never doubted him again.

“You said I earned the right to make my own choices,” Neal returned, his voice firm but soft as he echoed words Peter had murmured in the shadowed nest of the bed only a few feet away. He saw their impact in Peter’s eyes and couldn’t help hoping that he wasn’t imagining what he saw reflected back in them in response. “You changing your mind?”

_Just tell me you love me, Peter… even if it’s not true, just say it and I’ll stay. If someone like you can love me, even just a little, I’ll stay forever._

But Peter remained silent, a shake of his head his only response. Neal’s hope turned to dust. “Fowler’s still out there,” he reminded Peter, trying to keep his disappointment from showing on his face.

“This isn’t over yet,” Peter assured him. He let himself smile, a renewed sense of purpose filling him.

Neal hadn’t realized it, but he’d just admitted to Peter that he still hadn’t chosen yet. If he could beat Fowler, could win the game where Neal’s strategy had come up empty, then there was still a chance that Neal would come back to him.

There was something in Peter’s face that had Neal’s eyes narrowing. Just like with Alex, he’d missed something in this exchange with Peter that he should’ve seen coming, and he had a feeling that whatever he’d failed to pick up on was vitally important. “What do you mean by that?” he asked even as Peter was standing, gathering his coat to leave.

“I’ve got something in play,” Peter said, leaving without further explanation. If he’d learned anything from Neal, it was that sometimes, quiet expressions of devotion and affection weren’t enough.

Sometimes, you had to make the grand dramatic gesture, and let that speak where words would fail.

* * *

Some instincts never truly go away. They might fade, or fall into disuse from the changes life brings, but they never leave entirely.

And so it was for June. Being the wife of Byron Ellington had taught her a great deal, and no matter how effectively they’d transitioned to a life of polished respectability, she’d never found any reason to put those lessons from her mind. It was how she’d known Neal was harmless enough to offer a home to, and how she knew that there was a very real chance that her upstairs suite would soon be vacant once more.

And it was how she knew from the too-quiet whisper of a seldom-used door that someone was breaking into her home.

Sure enough, when she walked into the mud room off the old gardener’s entrance, there was Alex, creeping in with a bag in one hand and silently closing the door with the other. “You know, Alexandra” she commented, watching Alex startle and spin at being caught, “Mozzie always prefers to use the back patio entrance when he decides to sneak in.”

Alex flushed to the roots of her hair. “I was just-”

“Hoping to slip in, presumably leave that bag for Neal, and then slip back out again unnoticed?” June’s smile was amused as Alex fidgeted. It was almost charming how the current generation thought that getting one over on an old lady was a foregone conclusion, no matter what her history. “You needn’t worry, dear: Neal is quite alone upstairs, and will likely be so relieved to see what you’ve brought with you that he’ll forgive you at once.”

For a moment, Alex didn’t know what to do with herself. Neal’s assurances that June was an ally and June’s generally mild disposition had led Alex to believe that the older woman couldn’t possibly know what Neal and she and Mozzie were, or what they’d been getting up to. But the sharp-eyed elder that stood before her now, expression knowing and tone briskly businesslike, left Alex wondering exactly who June was, and reassessing how much of a threat she presented.

June saw it and laughed. “Oh, no, dear, I’m quite contentedly retired, thank you. I just know a lot more than I look like I do; that’s all.” She took another step, her eyes watching Alex’s face. “But before you do go up, I wouldn’t mind a look at what sort of trouble you’re bringing through my door… if you’d be so kind? Out of… professional courtesy?”

It took a heartbeat before Alex shifted the bag until she was cradling it on one arm and able to unzip it with the other. “You’re not what I expected,” she admitted, drawing the canvas down around the sides of the music box until it was revealed to June’s gaze.

“No, I suppose I’m not,” June murmured. She closed the distance between them slowly, almost transfixed by the gentle glow of the amber, the delicate piecework of the inlay, the perfect symmetry. There were a few scant places where uncareful hands had caused it damage over the centuries, but on the whole it was mesmerizing. Tantalizing.

Only thanks to her long years of experience in the life could June almost see the curse it bore in every seam: the taint that blood and greed had left on it. She knew better than to touch it, noted that Alex was carefully not doing so. She hoped Neal knew what he was doing.

“Then again,” she said more brightly, stepping back and pulling her eyes away from it to meet Alex’s gaze, “how terribly boring would life be if we were always exactly what others expected us to be? Come now; I’ll take you upstairs. Neal’s waiting for that, after all.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Alex murmured, falling into step behind her.

* * *

Fowler had sent him a text message; apparently, he’d interpreted the APB just like Peter had, and wanted Neal to meet him within the hour with the box at an address down in one of the warehouse districts.

It had driven Neal to his feet, setting him pacing restlessly as he stared at his phone. _How do I answer? Do I tell Peter, see if he can accelerate his plans? Or do I just meet Fowler there without answering and see what I can salvage of this mess without the box? Maybe even make a play for time to find Alex?_

“You’re going to burn a hole right through my floor if you keep that up.” Neal’s head shot up to see June standing in his open doorway, her expression somehow more teasing than reproachful. “Whatever’s bothering you,” she went on before he could respond, “believe me: it’s going to work out.”

Her reassurance felt hollow, however well-intentioned. “How do you know that?” Neal couldn’t help asking, wondering what wisdom she might have to offer.

Rather than saying anything, June merely turned with a soft smile on her face, looking back at the doorway just as Alex was coming through it. The music box still rested openly in her hands, couched on the canvas bag they’d concealed it in at the consulate.

Neal’s knees almost buckled, relief hitting like a punch to the stomach and driving the air from his lungs. It wasn’t hopeless after all. He could go meet Fowler, keep him distracted from whatever Peter had in play, and finally… finally, it would be over.

Crossing to June, he reached out, his hands cupping her slightly bent elbows and drawing her into an almost-embrace. He would miss this woman who he knew so little and yet knew him so well, who had welcomed him into her home with no reservations and eyes far more open than he’d known during that first meeting in the thrift shop. There had been many farewells in his life, but few he regretted more than this one.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice soft and earnest. He hoped she heard everything in it that he couldn’t find adequate words to express. “For everything.”

Searching those blue eyes bright from tears and relief, June did indeed hear everything Neal couldn’t bring himself to say. He’d been a reminder of days gone by, a charming companion that had brought her a kind of joy, especially in his similarity to her Byron. If nothing else, Neal had given her hope that there were still those in the life that cherished civility and elegance, that ‘gentleman’ thieves could still exist. Their paths had crossed for a reason, and she had a strong feeling that they would again before her time was done.

“Oh, you know I don’t believe in good-bye,” she insisted, wrapping him into the hug he’d been too shy to give her. The fierceness with which he hugged her back was unreserved, and she wondered just what he’d been through that affection was so precious to him now. “Neal, you are one in a million,” she declared as she drew back to look him in the eyes. His answering smile was like a sunbeam, though there was a disbelief lurking in his eyes, a hunger for her to mean it that broke June’s heart. “And don’t you forget it,” she added.

Casting a meaningful, almost warning glance at Alex, June turned and left them to their own reunion. Alex shifted as June closed the door, her expression a little abashed. Neal wondered what had passed between them before they’d come upstairs. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” was all he said, somehow knowing better than to ask.

“Funny,” Alex replied, “I was thinking the same thing.” She pushed away from the wall and crossed the distance between them, holding the music box out like an offering. “But here: before I change my mind.”

There was something symbolic in the gesture: the music box between them as it had always been, pursuit of it preventing any real closeness. Neal reached up and took its weight into his hands from beneath, as Alex had been holding it, as much in awe of it as he’d been from the first moment he’d seen it tucked away in the Consul General’s safe.

It whispered to him, wanted him for its own even now. It was the key to Kate’s freedom, to Peter’s safety from Fowler’s machinations. It was priceless in ways that had nothing to do with the amber and gold it had been built from, and in the face of it, Neal almost had to remind himself to breathe.

“You don’t know what this means to me,” Neal confessed, looking up into Alex’s warm brown eyes. He was just raw enough to let his vulnerability show, though something in his mind still tried to shriek at him that it was a mistake to let her or anyone else see it.

“I think I do.” Alex knew there was something Neal wasn’t telling her. Could see in his eyes that there was more to the story than she was likely to ever get out of him. Well and so: she’d not told her whole story, either. _If I did, would it matter?_ she wondered. _Would he give up Kate, or whatever else this is about, if I told him why I’ve been chasing the music box for so long?_

_No,_ she concluded. _Not Caffrey. He thinks with his heart; it’s gotten him into trouble before. Better to just let him hand it over to this Fowler guy and track it down again later. Neal won’t give Kate up, not even for a king’s treasure._ “I hope Kate’s still the same girl you think she is,” she said instead, pacing past Neal towards his dining table in an effort to put some space between herself and those aching sapphire eyes.

“Getting that a lot lately,” Neal replied, sensing something in her tone that bothered him. It was never more clear to him than now that he’d never understood her motives for seeking the box, which made it even more confusing that she was suddenly giving it up without a fight. He turned to face her. “If you don’t trust her, why’d you bring this back?”

“Because…” The words stalled on her tongue. Alex didn’t know why she was about to say them, given that Neal had already turned her down once. Chasing any man wasn’t her style, especially not when she had never envisioned herself settling down. But there was something about Neal Caffrey that called to Alex, that told her their destinies weren’t yet meant to diverge. “I don’t want this to be good-bye,” she finally confessed, stepping closer to him again. “In case she’s not.”

The moment was charged; she could see on Neal’s face that he didn’t know how to respond. Offering a small, hopeful smile, Alex decided to defuse things before either of them did something they’d regret. “And plus? I figured I don’t need all the heat this is gonna bring. I don’t need the same guy who’s been coming after you coming after me.”

Of everything she’d just said, that was the one thing Neal could take at absolute face value. He’d been certain from the start that Alex might cut and run if she knew the whole truth about Fowler. He had to wonder how much had filtered down into the criminal world, to the people Alex would go to for information. How much those people might know that he didn’t about the lion’s mouth he was about to walk into. “You always made smart decisions,” Neal complimented softly.

For half a breath, Alex wanted to say ‘not always.’ To tell him everything she’d never said about the box and see if his dedication to Kate was as strong as it seemed. To be reckless, and press her mouth to his, and see what might happen afterwards.

“You should try it sometime,” she breathed, her self-preservation instincts winning out. Without another word, she too walked out the door, turning back to give him a regretful smile before closing it.

* * *

For a long moment, all Neal could do was stand in the middle of his suite, smiling and breathing and wrapping his mind around the unimaginable twist of good fortune that had led to this moment.

The music box was finally in his hands, the gold edging cool beneath his thumbs. With it, he could meet Fowler’s demands and set Kate free. Fowler would have no reason to go after Peter once Neal had acquiesced, since Peter would no longer be a threat to Fowler’s agenda. His purpose served, Fowler would have no further use for Neal or Kate, and Peter would be free of him by proxy.

Turning to stare around his suite, it began to sink in that this really was the end. That once Fowler’s conditions were met, he would withdraw the Sword of Damocles he’d held over them for so long, and then there would be nothing standing between Neal and Kate.

Between Neal and the choice Elizabeth had always predicted he’d be presented with.

Moving to his couch, Neal set the music box on the coffee table as he sank down, staring at it in wonder. Would Kate come running into his arms, as Mozzie had predicted? Or did Peter and Alex have the right of it? Would Kate be revealed to have been complicit with Fowler all along? Or had she truly been a pawn in the great chess game for all this time, the threat of being removed from the board at any moment circumscribing her movements?

It was impossible to know until he saw her. Impossible to be sure until Fowler’s deal was struck. And yet Neal couldn’t allow himself to be caught out unprepared, regardless of the outcome.

Before the thought was finished, Neal was on his feet again, grabbing a leather duffel and packing the essentials. He knew well how to travel light, to pack for any contingency, and if Kate had been true, then they would need to make their escape quickly before…

Before…

Neal slowed to a stop, the shirt he’d been removing slithering from his hand as his eyes caught sight of the ring still dangling on a chain around his neck. A ring he’d worn every day for months, ever since Peter had first given it to him: a symbol of the surety Neal could have in Peter’s loyalty to him.

Peter had asked him, perhaps no more than thirty minutes earlier, if they were on the same team. Neal hadn’t answered him, mostly because he hadn’t known how. It wasn’t unusual for Peter to render him speechless, especially when they were cloaked in nothing but bedsheets and shadows.

_*Wrung out from blinding release, Neal barely had the strength to move beyond the heaving of his chest as he dragged air into his lungs. Peter’s hands were still on his hips, steadying Neal where he sat flush astride Peter’s, Peter’s softening length still trapped inside Neal’s heat as they regained their senses._

_Those hands were gentle as they guided Neal up, Neal mewling in protest as Peter slipped free of his body’s grip. Rolling them onto their sides, Peter folded Neal close against his chest and kissed his hair as they relaxed, the pleasant post-orgasmic haze an easy thing between them now._

_Quiet moments like this were precious: when neither of them needed to say anything at all; no cases pressing for attention and no misunderstandings needing mended. They were just two lovers in the dark, resting in the aftermath of passion with the white noise of the city lulling in their ears, and there was nothing beyond the four walls of this room that could touch them._

_“You’re safe, sweetheart.” Whether it was a soft tremble running under Neal’s skin, or some random firing of a synapse as oxygen returned to the brain, or that infallible instinct that allowed Peter to know Neal better than anyone else that made him say it, Neal could never be sure. He only knew that whenever Peter uttered those words, Neal always believed them. “I’ve got you.”_

_The only way Neal could answer was to nestle in tighter, words he’d never said to anyone lodged behind the lump in his throat. Someday, he would tell Peter how very much it meant to him that Peter made him feel safe._

_Someday, he would tell Peter everything.*_

_Except_ , he realized as he stared at the bag he’d been packing on the bed. _Except if Kate loves me, I can’t turn my back on her. And I can’t stay here and work with Peter if I’m going to be with her. She’ll see in a heartbeat what happened between us, and she’ll never trust me to work with Peter once she knows. If I choose her, then we have to leave. Right now. Today. We can’t stay in New York. We probably can’t even stay in the country. We’ll have to leave._

His knees folded under him and Neal sat back on the bed, lost in thought. He’d been putting this off until the last possible moment, but now he couldn’t avoid the mental conversation any longer.

If Kate had been true, then Neal’s body had known long before his mind had caught up that he needed to leave with her. Needed to leave everything behind and start again, on the run, with Kate in the wind beside him.

If Kate had played him false… if she truly didn’t love him as Peter had asserted so fervently… could he stay? Could he bring himself to live with the arrangement between him and Peter long-term? Sharing Peter’s passion and working Peter’s cases until his sentence was up, and then trying to figure out how to make a living once all of his criminal life’s bridges were burnt?

Or should he run regardless, taking the chance to break free of everything and disappear? He’d done it before, and this time he was far better prepared for doing so than he’d been as a disillusioned eighteen-year-old. He could be the phoenix once more, a new creature rising from the embers of his old life, ever mindful of the fact that Peter would eventually be one step behind him.

Thinking of Peter drew out the echo of a memory, a husky “sweetheart” sounding amidst the confused rattle in his mind. The very idea of leaving him behind, regardless of whether or not Peter loved him, made Neal’s bones tremble.

The sun shifted, the reflection from one of its beams catching on the music box and flashing, drawing his eyes. He gazed at it in another moment of silent contemplation, as if it held the answers he needed. But the only place to find those would be at the rendezvous Fowler had dictated. All others would follow, once he had that critical piece of information.

Drawing a breath, Neal sent two text messages before packing the duffel full and changing into more sensible clothes for traveling. The ring remained on the chain around his neck. Into the interior breast pocket of his coat, he tucked the consultant ID that Peter had made for him at the very beginning of their deal and the small painting he’d done only a few weeks prior: the archangel Michael triumphant, but wearing Peter’s face instead of the more finely-featured one angels were usually depicted with.

Even traveling fast and light, Neal had learned well how to carry with him the things he couldn’t live without.

* * *

They arrived at the appointed place before Fowler: Neal to the alley Fowler had indicated, Mozzie watching from near enough to intervene if Fowler tried a double-cross. Fowler pulled up at the mouth of the alley in a nondescript black car and got out, leaving the car running. It was clear that no one else was in it; whether or not he’d brought his own lookout/backup remained to be seen. “That it?” he asked, walking up to Neal.

“I want assurances,” Neal snapped, unwilling to even confirm whether or not he’d brought the required ransom until he had some proof that Fowler was holding up his end. _And where is Kate?_

Glancing at the mouth of the alley, Fowler reached into his overcoat and drew out a manila envelope. Neal took it slowly, opening it and glancing over the documents as Fowler checked the opposing sight line.

The paperwork looked official enough: more than, considering he'd had access to similar paperwork for the better part of a year. They were official contract agreements like the ones he’d signed when his deal with Peter had been agreed to, except that these indicated that **Operation Mentor** had been dedicated to assessing his viability for recruitment into a deep-cover role for OPR.

It seemed almost too easy. Something like misgiving set off in the back of his mind. But while he put little past Fowler, the fact that these documents also involved being given a brand new identity to work under had possibilities Neal couldn’t ignore. “ **Mentor** was created for me?” he asked, wanting to see if he could read a lie in Fowler’s response.

“Kate and I made a deal,” Fowler confirmed. “You both get new identities. We get the box; you disappear… _legally_.”

Much as Neal knew Fowler wasn’t to be trusted, there were no tells. So far as Fowler was concerned, what he was saying was true. Whether those above him in OPR were being genuine about the offer or not didn’t matter. Fowler, for once, didn’t appear to be hiding anything.

And Kate had been fighting for him behind the scenes all this time. She’d made it possible for them to disappear. How much she’d manipulated or what was Fowler’s own idea didn’t matter in the least to Neal right now. Kate had been fighting for him just as he’d been for her.

Kate loved him. She had to, to have gone to such lengths and taken such risks for him.

_I’m sorry, Peter… but this time, you were wrong._

Hefting the bag, Neal extended it to Fowler. “There you go,” he offered, parting with the priceless item with only a little regret. He would likely never see it again, never know its secrets. But it was a price worth paying for Kate and Peter’s freedom from this man and those who supported him. _Still, it never hurts to ask._ “What’s so special about that box?” he asked as Fowler’s face became a mask of pure relief when he checked the bag to find the box inside as promised.

Fowler shrugged, clearly uninterested. “It’s above my pay grade,” he replied simply. “Kate’s waiting for you; time and place are in that folder.” He turned to walk away, then stopped and turned back to Neal. His expression was the least hostile Neal had ever seen him wear. “Have a nice life, Caffrey,” he offered before walking back to his car and disappearing with the box.

Whether Fowler’s total lack of curiosity about the box made Neal more or less suspicious of him, the deal was done. Neal waited in the alley until he could no longer hear Fowler’s car, then stepped out and signaled Mozzie from his hiding place. The smaller conman caught up with Neal as they walked away in the opposite direction from where they intended to go, each carefully scouting for signs of a tail. “Where’s Kate?” Mozzie asked, clearly having expected this meeting to go very differently.

“She’s waiting for me at a private airstrip on the Hudson River,” Neal answered, having looked before Mozzie caught up with him. “This wasn’t like a K&R, Moz; Kate somehow got Fowler to agree to giving us new identities and getting me out of the sentence I’m serving on the anklet. Now that Fowler has the box, she and I get to walk away… start over somewhere else.”

“You’re joking.” Mozzie’s disbelief was palpable. Neal stopped and handed him the paperwork, letting him read for himself what OPR was offering. Mozzie’s eyes went wide even as he passed the folder back to Neal. “A Washington-approved disappearing act,” he crowed as they started walking again.

“Technically, I work for OPR,” Neal corrected, despite knowing that both he and Mozzie were thinking about the same ways that someone in the life could use the documents he’d been handed… especially if they were smart about it.

“Technically?” Mozzie echoed, derision clear in his voice. “It’s just on paper. With this new identity, you can go anywhere… _with_ Kate!”

“And it’s legal,” Neal reminded him, unable to keep the smile from his voice. Whomever had approved this offer, regardless of their intentions or motives, had clearly not thought through what a skilled con artist could do with the kind of documents he’d just been given on a platter.

_Peter would’ve known,_ a tiny voice in Neal’s mind reproached. _Peter wouldn’t have fallen for this for even one minute. He’s your equal. He’s your equal and you still haven’t talked to Kate… Caffrey, think about what you’re doing! Something’s not right about all this..._

“That’s genius,” Mozzie commended, not noticing Neal’s preoccupation. “No one will be able to find you: governments, old enemies… old friends.”

Their pace ground to a halt again as Neal registered the sadness in Mozzie voice. Amidst all the turmoil and the plans and the worry over whether either Peter or Kate returned his affections, somehow he’d lost track of the fact that Mozzie would be left behind as well. Whether Neal stayed with Peter, which would eventually drive a wedge between him and Mozzie that would never be mended, or disappeared with Kate, which meant leaving both New York and Mozzie behind.

It wasn’t fair, no matter how necessary. Mozzie had been mentor and friend, partner and confidante, and Neal would miss his quirky steadfastness. His erratic temper and his dependable resourcefulness. His humor and his willingness to help, no matter how madcap the scheme Neal concocted.

Looking up at Neal, Mozzie tried to remember that the life they led often meant parting ways with friends on short notice, many times without even a chance to say farewell. It didn’t help. “Remember that old Chinese curse?”

“‘May you live in interesting times,’” Neal quoted, remembering it at once.

“These certainly are… interesting times.” There was a lump in his throat, trying to tie a knot around his words. The regret writ large across Neal’s face made it tighten. “Remember the second half of that curse?”

Neal nodded. “‘May you find what you’re looking for.’”

From the great sigh that Neal let out, Mozzie could tell that Neal was braced for another warning about Kate’s nature, another remonstrance that he was chasing a pipe dream. In these last moments, whether they met again someday or not, Mozzie didn’t have the heart to say it. He’d tried to make Neal see reason and failed; all that was left was to hope that when Neal found what he’d been looking for, happiness was there with it. “Gonna say good-bye to the suit?”

Sapphire eyes went tight and aching for an instant too long to hide it. Neal didn’t answer him verbally, but Mozzie knew Neal well enough to read the answer Neal couldn't say out loud in the sharp twist of pain across those elegant features… knew what he’d been missing about the relationship between Neal and Peter for all these months. It had never been just the deadly dance of predator and prey between them; something more had always underscored every exchange. Something intangible, that had eluded classification by Mozzie until this very moment.

Somewhere along the way, Neal had fallen in love with Peter Burke. How far it had gone, whether Peter knew or not, whether Neal thought he would find happiness or misery with Kate, didn’t matter. Neal was taking the opportunity OPR was presenting him with to run like hell in the other direction. Mozzie couldn’t blame him.

Mozzie couldn’t help pitying Peter, either… because the suit would probably never know precisely why Neal was about to vanish out of his life.

“Send me a postcard,” Moz asked, his throat closing on a thousand emotions, knowing as Neal walked away that the younger con would do no such thing. He would miss this wild, fey, unlikely creature that had come into his life so many years ago… would miss the brightness of those eyes and the facility of that mind and the compassion in that smile. Would miss the crazy, last-minute schemes and the rapier wit.

Would miss one of the best friends he’d ever had.


	6. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, guys. We all knew this moment was coming. That Scene.
> 
> In addition to the tissue warning, please be aware that the very last moments of this chapter contain violence, minor character death and are possibly triggery. Please take care of yourselves when reading, especially if you spent the holiday in a stressful environment.
> 
> *hides behind wall of full tissue boxes*

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/00004ab7/)

****

~ooooOOOoooo~

_{Alex double-crossed Neal. Need to do this first chance before Fowler finds out. En route. 10 minutes to parking garage near OPR.}_

Diana barely glanced at her screen long enough to read the message. It was still long enough to almost miss Fowler exiting the OPR building and heading for the same parking structure Peter was referring to. He was going out for a coffee break, though how long her window would be depended on whether Fowler was really going out to get a macchiato at Starbucks or if that was just his excuse for slipping out to do something else.

Either way, Peter’s message made it clear: they wouldn’t get another chance at this. Whether Peter was in place or not, Diana had to go in now.

_{Window just opened, boss. Go time. Call from rendezvous point.}_

By the time Diana had gotten through the security checkpoints and was on her way up the stairs, her phone was beeping in her earpiece. She picked up with a brush of her fingers past her ear, hiding the gesture by tucking a loose strand of hair behind it. “Fowler just left for his ‘coffee break.’ I’m about to enter his office.”

 _“Aim for his laptop, Diana,”_ Peter instructed. She could hear how much he wished that he was the one taking the risk even over the phone. _“But be careful.”_

“I’ll be out before he can take his first sip of macchiato,” she assured him. She never stopped moving, keeping her voice low. It wasn’t unusual for an agent to be walking and talking in the office, but even so, Diana brushed at her hair again and hung up the call. She didn’t want to draw even the smallest attention to herself.

Locating Fowler’s office took longer than she’d wanted, but luck was with her when she found it. There was no one else around as she ducked inside; no one to notice as she rounded his desk and slid the password-decrypter into the USB drive.

It was now just a matter of time that none of them actually had.

* * *

Staying alone in the house while Peter was out dealing with Fowler, Elizabeth had started to feel claustrophobic. Normally, she had her own business matters to attend to, but that had been effectively shut down by the stunt Fowler had designed to provoke her husband. And companies like hers didn’t survive incidents like this, even if proven innocent. The scandal was enough to keep clients away.

Coming back in from a long afternoon walk, Elizabeth was not prepared to see a huge arrangement of flowers on her previously bare dining table.

The house had been locked and the alarm set; there were only three people she knew of that could have gotten in to place it there. Two of them she trusted implicitly, and the other she knew to be harmless despite any protestations he might make to the contrary.

She walked over to the table, slipping off her coat and setting it and her purse aside. Nestled within the green was a card, which she deftly plucked out at once. Her name was handwritten on the envelope in marker in a hand she didn’t recognize, and it looked too feminine to be Mozzie’s; she could only presume that the florist’s clerk had filled it out for the purchaser.

Opening the card left her even more confused, although she was certain it hadn’t been Peter that had arranged this upon reading the cryptic “Speed Dial #1” in the same writing as her name. _Curiouser and curiouser._

Not seeing a phone lying on the table anywhere, she gently pressed the leaves of the arrangement up and saw that one had been tucked into the top of the vase, just enough to keep it in place but not far enough to damage the stems or get wet. Retrieving the phone, she flipped it open and pressed ‘1’ until the call dialed and connected. 

_“Elizabeth!”_

“Neal?” Sure enough, he’d been a candidate, having had free access to her home in the months since he and Peter had become lovers. But with everything that was going on, breaking into her house to leave her flowers with a cryptic message and a burner phone didn’t seem to make much sense, let alone seem important enough to be a priority. “What is this?”

_“I’ve got a friend at the Channing Museum; he’s going to call you today. He owes me a favor.”_

Just the idea of a museum curator owing Neal a favor, rather than the other way around, was enough to make Elizabeth suspicious, but Elizabeth also remembered that the Channing had been the museum mixed up in a case of artwork that had been essentially stolen from a family during World War II. It wasn’t hard to guess that Neal had been keeping a secret related to that case and was now cashing in his silence. “Really?” she asked cautiously. “Why?”

_“To hire Burke Premiere Events to do their annual Masters Retrospective.”_

He said it so casually, as if it were nothing at all. Elizabeth was bowled over, the implications leaving her momentarily speechless. _The Channing’s reputation is sterling… this could save me if they’re known to be a client even in the wake of this mess Fowler stirred up. Oh, Neal…_ “That’s… that’s… that’s impossible to get.”

_“You just got it.”_

Neal was fairly crowing; she could almost see his boyish grin in her mind’s eye: pleased and proud, eyes shining as he waited for a word of praise or approval. It always made her ache for him, made her wonder what even Peter had failed to dig up about Neal’s past that might explain why that was something he needed so badly. “Why are you doing this?”

_“Just trying to fix what I broke.”_

It left Elizabeth speechless again, though this time it was because there was too much she wanted to say and didn’t know how. She didn’t blame Neal for what Fowler had done; not really. She’d been angry and upset after the incident at her showroom, and she’d lashed out at both him and Peter because it was them Fowler had been aiming to hurt. Ruining her reputation and business had been an afterthought; an acceptable casualty of their war. But Neal hadn’t been the one to start that war, and Elizabeth wanted to tell him that she understood that.

Before she could, Neal spoke again. _“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”_

After all that had passed, there wasn’t a question she could imagine he might pose that she wouldn’t answer. “Yeah?”

_“You and Peter… how’d you know?”_

There was such hesitation in his voice… Elizabeth knew how torn Neal was, wished there was a way to ease the decision for him. _Maybe… just maybe… is he ready to make it? Is he ready to really consider letting Kate go? He needs to… he needs Peter and Peter needs him… and I…_

 _No. He needs to make his own decision. Not the one Peter and I think is best. If he’s going to decide to stay, it has to be because he wants us and not Kate, not because we asked it of him._ “Well…” she offered, hoping he would understand her meaning and take it to heart, “I think there’s a difference between loving the _idea_ of someone... and actually loving who they really are.”

* * *

On the other end of the line, Neal’s heart throbbed painfully at the soft truth in her words. There was a difference. A very big one. And it was inescapable.

Kate was Neal’s dream. She had come into his life at a time when he’d given up any hope of permanence, of home and hearth, of something real that would never vanish beneath his fingertips, and she’d seemingly offered the promise of all of it. No matter how it had looked, she had kept faith, had acted to protect him and tried set the board to get them both safely through the game. They could slip the noose once they were gone, vanish somewhere warm and safe like they’d always planned. The dreams Neal had shared with Kate had been important to him, were still attainable after all.

But the reality of the love between them was a brittle thing, crumbling when he gripped it too tightly, marred by lack of trust. It was too easy to believe that love could be discarded… which was how all of this had gotten started in the first place. Despite how perfect Kate and everything she’d offered him had seemed, their lack of trust was like a hidden flaw inside a diamond, causing it to shatter when one tried to facet it.

He loved Peter Burke, in spite of all the man’s superficial flaws: his department store suits and his tin palate and his contempt for the beau monde. He loved Peter’s spirit: the fire in his eyes as he ran a case. The unending gentleness of his touch. The boundless heart that beat within that solid chest. Peter was his one safe place, his guardian angel; he was the audience Neal’s genius craved and the strength Neal drew on when he couldn’t find his own. Peter Burke was everything Neal had always needed, even before he’d known he needed it.

But his dreams of a life with Peter were impossible. Peter loved Elizabeth; had promised her forever. Neal couldn’t be so selfish as to steal her dreams, or expect her to share them indefinitely. She had given him too much for him to be so churlish. And the Burkes would eventually have children. Neal wouldn’t ask Peter to split his time between his family and his mistress. It wouldn’t be fair to any of them.

It hurt his heart, that Elizabeth didn’t know this was good-bye. That she would never be able to tell him why she’d allowed him these hellishly wonderful months in Peter’s arms. Bidding adieu to Mozzie and June had been hard, but he’d done it. The other agents on the White Collar team would be missed, but he would always think of them well and hoped they would remember him in kind. Neal could only just manage this oblique farewell to Elizabeth without breaking down.

Thinking about actually saying good-bye to Peter felt like his heart being crushed inside his chest.

“Well, listen… I gotta go.” The words tasted like ash in his mouth, but he forced himself to say them. “Thanks… for everything.”

_“Okay… well, um… I-I’ll talk to you later.”_

Tears burned, a lump hardening in his throat. He had to say this, had to do this. It was the only way. “Good-bye, Elizabeth,” he whispered.

When he ended the call, path chosen, Neal threw the phone away and forced himself to walk. To keep moving towards Kate. Towards the only dream he thought had a chance of coming true.

* * *

“Can I help you?”

Diana looked up to see an agent standing in the doorway to Fowler’s office, scowling at her. Immediately throwing on a game face that she hoped would’ve made Caffrey proud, she straightened from the computer and smiled at him. “Hey! I’m from I.T. Agent Fowler requested another security protocol and insisted that we schedule during his coffee break.” Her smile got even wider, her eyes trained on the agent no matter how badly they wanted to flick down and gauge the progress of the files being downloaded onto her thumb drive. “You know how he gets,” she added with a laugh.

The other agent grunted, dropped a file on Fowler’s desk and walked back out.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Diana hunched back over the computer, her fingers poised to remove the drive from the dock as soon as the download was complete. It was a risk either way, but she decided against trying to shut down the file explorer that she’d had open; as soon as the download was complete, she extracted the thumb drive and made for the exit stairs at the end of the hall.

It was just as well she had, because one glance as she was getting away from the vicinity told Diana that the agent who had just interrupted her had stopped, perhaps wondering why Fowler hadn’t mentioned I.T. would be coming up, and was turning back into Fowler’s office as she made it into the stairwell.

No one was around; few people in Diana’s experience preferred to take the stairs over express elevators. If her gait picked up noticeably, to not quite a run but decidedly faster than one might expect outside of a fire drill, there was no one around to notice.

By the time she got to the ground floor and exited into the parking structure, Diana had noticed no sign of any flags being raised. Either the agent hadn’t looked at the computer, or he was electing to handle things with Fowler quietly. Whatever his reaction, everything depended on her meeting up with Peter and the two of them getting away before Fowler got back. She used the redial tap on her headset to call Peter. “I’m headed to the garage,” she told him when he picked up. “I’ve got everything on **Mentor**. You’re not gonna believe it.”

_“Is Neal involved?”_

Diana could hear the hesitation in Peter’s voice, but the only reassurance he would accept would come when he read the files for himself. She hadn’t had time to do more than glance at the file headings while the download was in progress, but even they didn’t point to Neal being complicit in Fowler’s plans. “Heavily,” she told him, because that much was the truth. “There’s another file, but it’s encrypted.”

_“See you in a moment.”_

The line disconnected as Diana rounded a corner. She just needed to get to where Peter had parked…

“Agent.”

Though she’d never heard the voice before, the heavy tone of contempt in it froze Diana in her tracks. Standing on the driver’s side of a black sedan was a tallish blond man in his thirties, a cup of coffee resting on the roof of the car that was between them. She couldn’t see his hands, but he stood like an F.B.I. agent and had clearly been waiting for her. _This must be Fowler… okay. No problem. Just keep breathing, keep calm, and stall for time until Peter can get here._

“You,” Fowler continued sardonically, “were on my computer.”

 _The agent that walked in on me must’ve called him after all. Okay, then._ Her shoulders squared a little more of their own accord as Diana decided to brazen it out. He was expecting evasion; replying as if everything was business as usual might throw him off enough to give Peter the time to find them. “Agent Barrigan; D.C. office,” she introduced shortly. “I have a warrant for my investigation on **Mentor**.”

Fowler frowned, having expected her to deny it. “Why is D.C. looking at my operation?” he asked, starting to pace towards the back end of the car.

“OPR appropriating resources for Neal Caffrey?” Diana asked pointedly. “An art thief? It raises questions.”

“It’s all legitimate.” He was coming around the car now; his hands were in his pockets, his movements as casual and calm as his tone.

It was a deceptive posture that set off warnings in Diana’s head. One of her sidearms was holstered at her back, under her jacket, the other at her hip. She wished going for one wouldn’t look so obvious. She wished Peter would get there to back her up, even without a badge; she’d feel better if this man was outnumbered. “I know.”

Something must have tipped him off to her growing unease; she saw the way his gaze sharpened and fought the urge to step back, refusing to give ground unless she had to. “And what else did you find?” he asked, his voice clearly indicating that he knew what there was to find on his computer.

“Encrypted file,” she admitted. He was getting too close for her liking, even with better than ten feet between them. “I couldn’t open it,” she added.

His left hand drew out of his pocket, a gun in his grip. Diana immediately lifted her hands into the air, before he could accuse her of behaving in a hostile manner or of going for her sidearms. “I’d like it back,” he told her calmly. There was no shake in his voice or his hand. He was calm, collected. If he fired, especially at this range, he wouldn’t miss.

Just at that moment, Peter came around the wall and practically ran Diana over. Relief rushed her as she caught him in her peripheral vision, watched him take in the scene, saw his face contort into a snarl of rage.

“Burke,” Fowler snapped. Peter’s appearance agitated him, drew his attention away from Diana. It split his focus, making him less dangerous.

“Fowler.” Peter had hoped it wouldn’t come down to a confrontation, but the moment he saw the gun, anger billowed up inside him that he couldn’t fight back down. This man had threatened everything and everyone he cared about, and would apparently scruple at nothing. It enraged him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Of course you’re involved in this.” Fowler turned the gun on Peter, no longer counting Diana as even a threat. It was Peter that kept interfering with the operation, Peter that had obstructed his access to Neal at every turn. Peter had been a threat from the beginning. “Stay where you are.”

“Lower your weapon,” Peter ordered, hoping that Fowler would listen to reason. He didn’t have a gun; didn’t know where Diana holstered hers or how to get one from her without drawing Fowler’s attention.

“You have no idea what you’re getting into with this,” Fowler vowed, barely even hearing Peter repeat the order to lower his gun. If Peter thought he’d been a problem, Fowler knew he wasn’t prepared to deal with the person that had orchestrated all of this. “You just stay where you are.”

Fowler wasn’t watching Diana anymore, was too angry that Peter was once again involved to even notice as her hands raised just high enough into the air to expose the gun at her back to Peter’s view. Peter caught the motion and understood in a moment, throwing his hands wide out at his sides as he stepped closer to where Diana stood. “Why are you doing this?” he asked; it was a question that had nagged at Peter right from the start. He didn’t hope for an answer right now, but even voicing it felt good. “We’re on the same team.”

“Stay where you are! Stay where you are!” Fowler was getting more and more agitated; needed Peter for once to just be under control and stay that way. He was right on the cusp of being done; he’d come too far for Peter to dismantle everything now. “You’re out of your league,” he hissed as Peter fell silent. “You have no idea what you’re getting involved in.”

“You don’t want to shoot an agent.” Peter hoped it was true, prayed that Fowler wasn’t so far gone that he would be willing to pull the trigger on either him or Diana right here and now. The desperate look on Fowler’s face told Peter it was getting close to a tipping point, though.

So when his fingers were close enough to brush the edges of the gun at Diana’s back, he didn’t hesitate. It was in his hands a second later and trained on Fowler, who was aiming right back at him and no longer anything resembling calm.

They both shouted orders for the other to disarm, and they both ignored the other. Diana went for her second piece in the holster at her side, drawing on Fowler in hopes of making him stand down by sheer force of numbers. The motion drew Fowler’s attention. His gun hand swung, aiming for her.

Peter pulled the trigger.

Two shots rang out; Diana had fired only a second after Peter. Fowler stumbled back in surprise, sprawling back against the back passenger door of the sedan, his breath rattling as the impact bruised his ribcage and stunned his lungs.

Both Peter and Diana were on him in a heartbeat, their guns put away as they moved to assess his injuries. There was no blood staining his button-down shirt; Peter pulled it aside to reveal their two bullets neatly lodged in the bulletproof vest Fowler wore beneath it. _Paranoid bastard… just as well, I suppose. If I’d killed him, he wouldn’t be able to answer any questions._

“Breathe,” Peter ordered, knowing that the other man hadn’t been seriously injured. Grabbing the back of Fowler’s neck, he pushed Fowler over until he was bent at the waist, which would make it easier for him to regain a normal breathing pattern. His ribs would ache for a while, but that was the price he’d earned after pointing a gun at one of Peter’s agents. “Breathe. Breathe, Fowler.”

“How’d you know he was wearing a vest?” Diana asked, just as surprised as Peter to find it beneath Fowler’s clothes.

Peter gave her an unrepentant smirk. “I didn’t.” It earned him an appreciative smile from Diana in return even as Peter wrestled Fowler into a better grip and then hauled him back up, slamming him against the car. “What the hell is **Mentor**?” he demanded. He’d lost all patience with Fowler, with the web of secrets and the games they’d been playing. Fowler had finally crossed the line, and Peter was determined to put an end to this before anything worse could happen.

“ **Mentor** is legit,” Fowler panted, unwilling to resist until he had enough breath back to put up a fight. “Caffrey works for us now. He and Kate are working deep undercover for OPR.”

Peter felt the blood drain from his face. There was no reason on Earth, _none_ that Neal would be needed by OPR. _More lies… more lies and more secrets… this is bullshit… Neal’s walking into a trap… Kate laid a trap with Fowler’s help and Neal’s going to walk right into it..._ “OPR doesn’t have deep cover agents,” Peter snarled. “You are helping him disappear!”

“He wants to go,” Fowler purred, low and menacing.

“You met with him again.” The words snarled up out of Peter’s throat, dark fury edging every syllable. Shoving Fowler over at the waist, Peter looked into the back seat of Fowler’s car. Sure enough, there was the music box… the amber music box that Kate had named as the price of Neal’s freedom from her machinations. _And there’s my proof… Kate and Fowler have been working together… Neal has no idea what he’s walking into._

Something in Peter’s mind seemed to snap. Something deep that knew if he let Neal go now, he would never see his beautiful, impossible, adorable artist again. Neal belonged to him, and he belonged to Neal, and Peter wouldn’t let Fowler or anyone else take Neal away from him.

Yanking Fowler upright, Peter just barely got a grip on his rage. “Neal’s gonna disappear; I need to know where he is.” His left hand took hold of Fowler’s jacket and Peter shook him, hard, desperation cracking through his voice. “Tell me where he is!”

“Why do you care?” Fowler’s face was close, too close, voice still purring with malice.

The words slammed up through Peter’s throat and across his mind and for one dangerous, reckless, breathless moment, Peter very nearly told Fowler what he had never dared tell Neal. Somehow, the rational part of Peter’s mind found the will to tighten his jaw, to close his teeth sharply on the words before they could find voice, refusing to put another bullet in Fowler’s gun. It was a close thing, far too close, but Peter managed to swallow the words back before they burst out and damned them all.

“Give me the drive,” he instructed Diana instead, grateful for her calm, competent presence beside him. Without question, she immediately retrieved it from her pocket and handed it to Peter, who held it up in Fowler’s face, a bullet in his own gun at last. “You want me to upload this to D.C.?” Peter threatened, russet eyes burning into Fowler’s as he regained control. “Or do we have something to talk about?”

For a moment, just a moment, Fowler’s mask slipped. Peter could see something akin to fear in the other agent’s eyes, though he didn’t have the time or energy to wonder at it. He only knew that whatever Fowler’s motivations were, the data on that drive being spread throughout the Bureau wasn’t something Fowler was willing to allow… the consequences not something he wanted to bear. “Airstrip by the Hudson,” Fowler finally said, something akin to defeat in his voice. “Hanger Four.”

Shoving the drive in the pocket of his blazer, Peter’s expression became grim. “Arrest him,” he instructed Diana coldly. “Receiving stolen property. Get that damn thing in an evidence lock-up. And keep this as quiet as you can. I’m going after Neal.”

“What if he’s already gone?” Diana called as Peter practically shoved Fowler into her grip and started for the exit.

Peter paused just once, turning to look back at her. Concern was written across her face. Resolve was etched into his. “There’s nowhere on Earth he can hide from me, Diana. No matter where he goes, I’ll find him. Now get this bastard into custody and put that gaudy piece of crap under lock and key.” Turning, Peter exited the garage and broke into a dead run.

* * *

It had taken Neal longer than he’d liked to collect the bag he’d packed and make it down to the airstrip that Fowler’s paperwork had specified. He’d been reasonably sure that the plane wouldn’t leave without him; after all, this was a private airstrip and a chartered flight, not a major airline flying out of LaGuardia. But there had been a nagging fear dogging his steps the entire way, and he hadn’t wanted to examine what he feared too closely. He only wanted to get to the plane and away from that fear as fast as he could.

Coming through the hanger and around one of the planes sheltered within it, he saw the charter waiting on the tarmac, its engines already primed and ready to go. The door behind the pilot’s seat was open, the stairs folded down in readiness.

And Kate was standing in the doorway, her lovely face lit with a smile as she waved to him. An answering smile broke across Neal’s face as he waved back, ignoring the way his mind tried to whisper about her resemblance to Elizabeth, who would surely be very disappointed in him when she found out whom Neal had chosen.

“Neal!”

For a moment, Neal thought he’d imagined Peter’s voice, that the nagging fear he’d refused to name was playing tricks on him. But there were footsteps behind him, slowing from a run, and when Neal turned around, Peter was standing there: ruggedly handsome features, well-muscled body hidden beneath layers of off-the-rack suit and overcoat, russet-brown eyes bright with success at having caught up to Neal in time.

This was the last thing Neal had wanted. The one thing he’d known he wouldn’t be able to bear. And yet now that the moment was here, Neal couldn’t help being glad for one last glimpse of Peter’s face. One last chance to store up memories of every line and nuance, the flush in his cheeks from racing to get here before the plane took off and the way Peter’s shoulders seemed broad enough to carry the weight of the world.

If Peter touched him, he would be lost. He would stay, and Kate would fly away without him, and he would be trapped here with a man that didn’t love him and a life that he didn’t know how to lead. There was only one way out, and that was to put as much distance between them as possible.

“Are you here to arrest me?” Neal challenged, knowing Peter couldn’t. The hostility in Neal’s voice surprised even him: the anger that Peter was making this so much harder just by standing there.

Peter laughed ruefully, knowing that Neal was probably on the defensive. Kate was only a few yards away, Neal mere steps from the only form of freedom he seemed to understand. But Peter couldn’t let him go without a fight. Not without one last try. “I’m still a civilian,” he assured Neal, spreading his arms in a peacemaking gesture. “And I know about **Mentor**. And I know you can walk away and it’s all legal.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Neal could already feel the catch in his throat, knew he should just say farewell and turn around and get on the plane if Peter had no legal grounds to stop him from doing so. But he couldn’t… he just couldn’t. Not yet.

“I’m here as your friend.” It was the last card he had to play: that after all the time they’d spent together, in bed and out of it, Peter knew they had a bond that went beyond lustful attraction. A bond that had to mean something to this beautiful man as it did to Peter. A bond that Peter couldn’t believe it easy for Neal to turn his back on, no matter what else lay between them.

 _*...your friend.*_ It sounded in his mind like a death knell, like the dying gasp of the last hope he’d carried that Peter might somehow have loved him. _If he doesn’t love me, he needs to let me go. I need him to let me go. Why can’t I just walk away?_ “You understand I’m getting on that plane,” he reminded Peter firmly, though he couldn’t be sure whether he was trying to convince Peter or himself that it was going to happen.

“I also know you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.” Peter started to close the distance between them: slow steps so as to not spook Neal into moving closer to that plane. To Kate, who was watching through one of the windows in the fuselage. To a future that meant Peter could no longer protect him, might never see him again.

“This is what’s best for everyone, Peter!” Neal exploded, still rooted to the spot. He needed to do this; this was the only way. Why couldn’t anyone but him see that this was the only way? “You go back to your life; I get to have one of my own!”

_Your life with Elizabeth, with Satchmo. With quiet dinners in the townhouse and solving mortgage fraud cases and drinking beer and watching basketball at full volume. Your life without me. My life without you, where I may not be safe but I know how to see them coming. Where I may not be able to trust Kate, but at least I can tell her I love her and hear her say it back. You don’t love me, Peter; why can’t you see that I can’t stay if you don’t?_

Peter’s face tightened in consternation, the argument not making any sense. Neal had carved out what Peter had thought to be a very comfortable life for himself in New York, their own passionate liaison notwithstanding. Even if Neal didn’t want him anymore, in Peter’s mind, there was no reason to throw away everything Neal had built just for the sake of Kate’s untrustworthy affections.

“You already have one,” Peter argued. Neal was weakening; Peter could see how torn his expression was, how he could no longer look Peter in the eye as they spoke. “Right here. You have people who care about you.” _I care about you; Neal, please… please see that. Even if you love Kate and not me, even if I can never tell you how much, please see that I care._ “You make a difference,” he pressed, aching to draw Neal into his arms and take him away from this place. To let Kate vanish into memory, and keep Neal safe for as long as this beautiful man would let him. “You do.”

If there was one thing Neal had learned about Peter in the months since his release, it was that Peter understood Neal far better than he had any right to. Without knowing anything about Neal’s real past, he’d somehow found all of the right weaknesses and tried to press until Neal’s resolve shattered.

Words failed. There were no words for this moment. Everything Neal could want to say that would mean anything at all seemed locked in his throat behind the lump that threatened to choke off his very air. Finally, Neal reached into his interior breast pocket. His fingers fumbled a little, making sure to separate the tiny painting he would never relinquish from the ID wallet, then drawing the wallet out and extending it towards Peter.

Peter, who had all but closed the space between them. Who could take Neal into his arms and kiss him senseless until he forgot everything but the safety in Peter’s arms and the warmth of his touch. Peter took the wallet from Neal with careful fingers, their gloved hands never touching. “Thank you for this,” Neal managed, the words pushing their way free and dragging up tears to burn in the corners of his eyes.

For a long moment, Peter was speechless. The consultant ID he’d given Neal was a symbol, a peace offering in their early days, before shared passion had given them better ways to reassure one another. That Neal was giving it back now felt like a refutation of everything they’d shared. That Neal was spurning everything Peter had to offer in one fell swoop, sexual or otherwise.

“I gotta go,” Neal told him, watching the play of emotions across Peter’s face and wishing he didn’t feel about to break down in sobs. He turned and started to walk towards the plane again, desperate to get far enough away that he would forget the scent of Peter’s skin and aftershave, that he wouldn’t be tempted to drag Peter’s mouth to his own for a farewell kiss that would leave them both breathless.

A raw welter of emotion rose in Peter’s throat like bile. _Is what I have to offer really so little? So easy for him to walk away from without a second thought?_ “You said good-bye to everyone but me!” Peter snapped, unable to stop himself. It stopped Neal cold, turned him back to face Peter again. He barely noticed that Neal’s face was wet with tears, that Neal looked to be in as much agony as Peter felt. _Or is it something else? Could… has El been right all along?_ “Why?”

He couldn’t answer that question. To answer that question would damn them all. “I don’t know,” Neal prevaricated, casting about for an answer that wasn’t: _I love you too much to ever want to say good-bye to you._

“Yeah, you do,” Peter denied at once. He knew Neal better than that. Whatever the answer, Neal knew why. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know why, Peter.” Nothing was coming to him. Nothing but the truth.

“Tell me!” Peter insisted again. He could feel Neal on the brink, about to break. He just needed a little push further...

“You know why!” Neal snapped, not even knowing why he’d said it. Hating that he’d given even that much away.

He was almost there… “Tell me!”

“‘Cause you’re the only one that could change my mind!”

The words were out before Neal could stop them, tears glistening on his cheeks in the dim light of the overcast sky. His heart was shredding itself apart in his chest; he could barely breathe as he waited, every muscle screaming for him to move, to run before Peter tried… even as the deepest, truest part of himself held him in place, begging Peter to say the one thing that would do precisely that.

“Did I?” The question was quiet, heartsick, more vulnerable than Peter had ever been in his life. Everything that had passed between them had come down to this moment, and there was no turning away.

Peter had loved Neal for longer than he could remember, was amazed he’d denied it to himself as long as he had, and that love had bled through into everything Peter had done since that first night in Neal’s arms. If those actions weren’t enough to change Neal’s mind… if everything Peter had done to make Neal feel safe and cherished and beloved wasn’t enough… then saying three little words could not possibly tip the scale.

Images flashed through Neal’s mind: sweetheart roses, a ring on a chain. Peter striding into a room bearing an archangel’s grace, power unbound, a miracle in flesh. Tender kisses and soft laughter. Secrets shared in the dark, cocooned in warm sheets and warmer limbs. Pride and affection and lust chasing each other through the russet flame of those eyes, all for him. Only for him.

Kate was still waiting on that plane, the hopes and dreams Neal had cherished for years in her slender hands. Elizabeth was still Peter’s first choice, had the surest claim on Peter’s heart. He had no right to love Peter, no right to ask for more than he’d been given. And Peter had never said he loved him.

The magnetic pull of the other man was so strong, the spell of boundless care and unbridled passion so unbreakable, that Neal couldn’t respond. Couldn’t speak at all. Could only force himself to turn and start to walk away again. He didn’t see the blind pain snuff out the light in the russet eyes he loved; didn’t see strong shoulders slump in defeat and despair. Neal tried to focus his vision through tears burning in his eyes on Kate, on the way out. On the path to a future he no longer wanted, but over which he had some real measure of control.

Every step physically hurt, as if there was a chain between him and Peter, drawn tauter with every inch Neal tried to put between them, anchored with barbed hooks sunk into his soul that ripped pieces of him away as the distance grew. He had to do this. It was best for all of them. Fowler would leave Peter be; Peter could go back to his career, his marriage, his life… wouldn’t have to worry about him, come running to his rescue…

Wouldn’t call him 'sweetheart' in that deep, husky voice. Wouldn’t run skillful hands over his skin and follow them with whispering kisses. Wouldn’t tease him in the shower or gaze at him with smoldering eyes at the office. Wouldn’t hold him close and keep him safe while buried so deep he was touching Neal’s heart… The heart that now wrenched so hard at the thought, it almost drove Neal to his knees.

He needed to say it, just once. He owed it to Peter, and to himself, to acknowledge everything that was between them… everything he felt… his real reason for leaving… Turning, tears streaming down his face, Neal tried to force the words through a throat choking closed from heartbreak. “Peter…”

Sound and fury blasted behind them, rocking the Earth beneath their feet. Neal was thrown to his knees, scrambling to turn… to see… heart in his throat…

The plane was a ball of fire.

**_Kate..._ **

Neal was clawing his way up through air thick as quicksand, feet somehow finding purchase beneath him… he had to get to her… she’d been near the door… she could have been thrown from the plane… the word ‘no’ was tearing past his lips, denying the truth he already knew…

Arms like steel bands locked around his torso, holding him back. Neal’s entire body reared against the restraint, almost seizing from his need to run into the fire… “Stay here.” Peter’s voice was unyielding, irresistible command. “Stay back.”

Denial ripped from Neal’s mouth, his mind refusing to obey even as his body sagged into the safe enclosure of those immoveable arms. Kate could have stepped to the stairs to see why Neal kept stopping… could have been thrown free by the blast. She could be… could…

But there was no petite brunette form near the burning plane. No crumpled body thrown clear by the concussive blast… a wave of force that would have killed anyone in its path long before the flames could collapse the lungs… before the heat could… could…

No one on or near that plane could have survived.

Peter was still holding him, talking to him. The gentle voice was a dim buzz in Neal’s ears, incomprehensible. Kate was dead. Dead in an explosion intended to kill them both. He’d just accepted Fowler’s story. Hadn’t questioned. Hadn’t confided in Peter. Had taken what looked like the perfect way out of his silken cage and seemingly inevitable heartbreak without looking for signs of a double-cross.

And now Kate had borne the cost of his mistakes.

Sounds echoed in the distance, almost like sirens… Peter’s voice was still a far away hum in his ears as reality sank in with venomous fangs, poison leeching through his veins and leaving him numb… broken… breathless...

_They killed her because of me._

Oblivion beckoned, a yawning abyss, and Neal let himself fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peers out from behind what's left of my tissue box wall*
> 
> I'm sorry.
> 
> Final note: this is not the end of my Bindings 'verse! Having received a serious infusion of energy and inspiration thanks to all of you, my lovely readers, I have a definite plan to take this series all the way through to the end of canon.
> 
> Will they all be Reduxes? No. While the stories will stick pretty close to the events of each episode going forward, the relationship I've established between Neal & Peter in this series would be impossible to develop further in any meaningful way if I hewed as closely to canon as these Redux fics have done. I hope that you will all continue to enjoy them regardless.
> 
> But that also means that my ability to write the stories in this 'verse will go quite a bit faster! So keep a weather-eye out for the next "episode"! And thank you all for reading! You are all so appreciated. ♥


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